


All Maps Welcome

by Rozarka, smutty_claus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Humor, Community: smutty_claus, Crete, Department of Mysteries, Draco Malfoy in the Muggle World, F/M, Ghosts, Greece, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Knossos, Muggle/Wizard Relations, Plot, Post-Hogwarts, Romance, Squibs, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:49:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 46,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21920455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rozarka/pseuds/Rozarka, https://archiveofourown.org/users/smutty_claus/pseuds/smutty_claus
Summary: It's not easy to find a clear way out of the wreckage of a war, whether you're a battle-scarred girl, a ghost with regrets, or a scion of wizarding Britain's most notorious family. But when their paths converge, the journey forward gains both purpose and clarity.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Lavender Brown, Theodore Nott/Tracey Davis (secondary pairing)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 50
Collections: Smutty Claus Exchange





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cryptaknight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptaknight/gifts).



> Dear **cryptaknight** , I was so happy for the chance to write for your awesome request! This story grew, and grew, and grew... and I realise receiving a giftfic this long in the busy month of December could be a mixed blessing. *g* So please, breathe easy, and start on it whenever it's practical for you. Finish it at a pace that is no stress for you. I wish you very happy holidays! 
> 
> This fic is based on book canon only (EWE). Any similarities to HP canon beyond that are coincidental (or me thieving like a magpie) and shouldn't be counted on for consistency. Thanks to [Muridae](/users/Muridae/) and Anise for beta. And thanks, mods, for all your hard work and for your patience with me. So glad to be here for the very last round of the fest!

...I know your face  
But something's strange in your eyes  
Your voice I know so well  
Your words I don't recognise  
And all my faith gone  
All maps welcome  
The stars have been twisted around  
And I see myself  
Turn into something else  
Turn into someone else for a while

_Tom McRae_

***

Heavens. The young man was bound to catch a cold, carrying on like that.

She'd always enjoyed weddings, even though she'd never chosen to marry. It had almost happened, once, but in the end she'd had a bad case of cold feet and had called it off. It was nothing she'd ever regretted. Certainly, there'd been moments lately when she'd wondered if her life might have taken an entirely different path. It was pointless, of course, and really, that man had been such a wet blanket. She might still have expired prematurely, from sheer boredom.

Still, weddings were jolly events as long as she wasn't the one being marched up to the altar. She always had the feeling that someone or other was crossing their fingers, whether for luck, or for a cheat, but that might well be her own bias showing. This particular wedding, though, had her genuinely concerned. 

She'd come to feel for the kid. He'd been raised to be cruel, hadn't managed to live up to it, and was trying to pick his way out of a maze with a skewed map and no certain compass to rely on. She couldn't really blame him for needing some time. He'd looked white as a sheet taking his place up by the altar, and she suspected that this marriage his parents had concocted for his supposed benefit wasn't going to help.

Especially considering how his best friend — best man — was pacing outside, back and forth on the gravel driveway, shivering and wild-eyed and soaked to the skin in the rain. That boy was usually such a rock.

She drew back from the window in alarm, a frown creasing her brow. Oh, dear! She had a very bad feeling about this. 

***

Draco was going to vomit; he was fairly sure of it. The room was too hot, smelled too heady and cloying of roses, was filled with entirely too many people, and his blushing bride was taking too damn long to make an appearance at the start of the flower-lined aisle. He had the unpleasant notion that his face might be a perfect match for his green dress robes. Was she having second thoughts? Had she put her foot down about the entire thing? The fact that this unlikely idea made him hopelessly wish it were so could hardly bode well for their alliance.

"You all right, mate?" Greg had a nervous smile plastered in place and was barely moving his lips as he spoke, pearls of sweat beading on his upper lip, looking the part of the thug as ever.

"Of course I'm all right," Draco snapped, wishing it were Theodore in Greg's place; Greg had stepped up sportingly, bless his thuggish mug and loyal heart, but he was hardly great for emotional support and Theo was so fucking unflappable. He didn't know if he could ever forgive him for calling in with a stomach bug today of all days. His gaze moved listlessly over the seated guests. A hundred people, give or take a few, and, oh God, the ghost standing in the corner, artfully placed in the shadows at an angle where only he and Greg could easily see her, attempting with discreet waves to get his attention... pointing... outside? Greg was oblivious, of course, craning his neck staring down the empty aisle. Draco looked quickly away and at long last, a fanfare played up and there was movement at the other end of the room. Seconds later, Tracey Davis was walking with straight-backed poise up the aisle, her hand resting on her rotund father's arm. 

"Aw, blimey, would you look at her," whispered Greg in earnest, breathless admiration.

Wasn't that supposed to be his line (if more elegantly expressed)? She looked as though she were made of ice, like she'd break into cold brittle shards if you got frisky with her. Which he hadn't, yet. He supposed he ought to feel some lust at the idea of a wedding night, but bedding a woman who was practically being marched to the altar at wand point didn't bear thinking about, and all he could feel was the very alarming sense of a noose tightening around his neck. Tracey's strained smile and her pallor under the impeccable makeup suggested she shared the sentiment. 

She made it up the aisle; her father handed her off to Draco. Draco checked to make sure a reassuring smile was in place on his lips, and told her dutifully that she looked lovely. She gave him a polite smile in thanks, her lustrous dark eyes shuttered. He had no idea what she was thinking. He never had. 

And then they turned together and were facing an old, tufty-haired wizard, who spoke up pompously about two faithful souls about to be joined in a sacred union... The words washed over Draco like the inauspicious drumming of November rain on the windows. His gaze wandering, he met his mother's eyes, felt a wave of angry reproach rising inside him and at once glanced away. He couldn't even look at his father. It was too late, and it was no use. Tracey had been deemed the ideal bride for Draco, lone heir to the fine estate of the Fawleys who'd played their cards so much more carefully during the war; even her half-blood father was a respectable offshoot of the Puceys and his blood status in fact good for optics now right after the war tribunals. It was the Malfoys' name and standing at stake. For Tracey, it was the matter of Malfoy wealth — shrunken, yet still considerable by any standards — that would save her family home, in debt to the chimney-tops after two years of Voldemort's blackmail. 

They might as well be shackled to each other with gilt chains, the two of them. At bloody nineteen. 

The wizard, the same who'd presided over Dumbledore's funeral — another strategic choice made by his mother; appearances mattered — was droning on, saying something about someone who should forever hold their peace... There was commotion at the doors. Someone arriving unforgivably late and loud to the wedding, yet Draco couldn't even muster enough engagement with this entire spectacle to get irritated with the rude latecomer. 

There was the sound of purposeful strides. Gasps behind him, scandalised, indignant: one astonished cackle of laughter, quickly quelled — he started to wake enough from the daze to get curious, to start to turn around, and saw Tracey in profile beside him, her stubborn composure shattered at last, eyes widening, tears running down her cheeks, lips parting in a sob, a laugh as she shook her head violently and breathed out a very familiar name — and then she was bowling past him, gathering up her skirts to keep from stumbling, and was scooped up in the arms of a tall, slim, utterly rain-drenched man — _Theodore_ , who might not have any sort of stomach bug but who for once looked most flappable indeed, as he caught her and hugged her and swung her up into his arms, his wand gripped tightly in his free hand. 

"She d-doesn't love you," he said imploringly, speaking directly to Draco, his perfect teeth chattering from the cold. "And y-you don't love her, while I do. Ah... ah... excuse me—" 

He gave a resounding, echoing sneeze. ( _Gesundheit_ , murmured the ghost.)

Draco's father strode purposefully toward the two of them, wand raised, and Draco saw his bride reach quickly to her pearl-encrusted hip holster and unsheathe her wand. The crack of Apparition left the aisle suddenly empty. Draco stood rooted to the spot, while betrayal, humiliation and nauseating relief crashed chaotically somewhere above his head. His father, pale with shock and fury, stood with his wand in futile mid-action. His mother...

His mother was staring at the spot where the ghost had been, her eyes wide.

The silence that followed was abruptly replaced by a wall of murmurs and chatter, and in the midst of it he was aware of being quickly and firmly shepherded out a side entrance to another room, held close to his mother's side, Greg trying to keep pace and his father following close at their back, murder in his voice as the door closed behind them and he hissed out in outrage, "I'll destroy Nott... and as for that ungrateful little _tart_..."

Draco swung, fist raised, and broke his father's nose.

***

_Dear Parvati,_

_Thanks for filling me in on everyone. It's always lovely to hear from you and so good to get news from home. It's been too bloody long, yeah? I miss everyone, and you especially, I truly do. Although it's nice here, too, in some ways. I know you understand..._

She sighed and paused, tapping the end of her quill against her lips. Did Parvati understand? Yes... She did, of course Parvati understood, but she was still beginning to wonder just how long this Greek escapade of Lavender's was going to last, that much was obvious. Lavender read her own words again, wrinkled her nose and was tempted to ball up the parchment and hurl it on the fire. "When did I become that bloody boring?" she asked the piebald cat blinking at her drowsily from its perch on her bed. "Hey, don't you look at me like that, Soks. I have definitely not always been boring. I used to be fun. I think..." She plonked herself down on the bed beside Sokratis, parchment and quill in hand. "I also didn't use to have extended conversations with cats. Not that there's anything wrong with that." She scratched the cat gently between its ears and watched its yellow eyes blink gradually shut in pleasure, before attempting to continue her letter. 

_About that vacant shop front in Hogsmeade, why don't ~~you go ahead and look at it~~ we maybe wait until I get home and..._

Her heart raced. The wind was gathering force outside, tossing the first drops of rain in gusts against her dark window pane. Getting up and putting the quill and the impossible letter aside on her desk, she opened the window and leaned out, smelling salt from the sea and the sharpness in the air before a thunderstorm. Crete, they said, was brown in the summer and green in the winter. Her nostrils flared to take in the sweet resin from the myrtle tree outside and a whiff of late roses rising from Eleni's garden. She was so much more aware of all such things now. It wasn't just the hankering for red meat that Ron's brother had told her about when he visited her at St. Mungo's. She felt connected to all her senses, curious and alert to what they told her, in a primal way she'd never been, before... well, before. 

And that was a good thing, wasn't it? For the most part she enjoyed this part of it. The change.

The night was fresh and cool. November on Crete was a toss-up as far as the weather was concerned. It could be hot enough to lounge in a bikini on the beach in the daytime, then dip 10-15 degrees to the crisp early mornings. But the general trend was leaning steadily toward colder and wetter. Where had the summer gone? She'd felt so carefree, then. She'd still been here only a couple of months and had relished the heat and the freedom, had imagined she had oodles of time to figure out her life. Parvati, Seamus, Dean and Neville had come here in July for a week of swimming and sunning and bar-hopping, and it had been glorious. But they'd returned home to England in due course, and Lavender had remained behind one month... two months... three months and counting. The hotel had fewer guests each week, and it would keep dwindling, Uncle Matthew had said, until February in the new year. That seemed like an eternity away. 

Emitting a quiet growl, she pushed away from the window, leaving it slightly ajar so that Soks could jump out if he chose, and crossed the floor, flinging the door open to the corridor of guest's rooms. She cast a look back over her shoulder and blinked her eyes slowly at the cat in apology for the growl and the stalking strides that had set its eyes wide and its fur on end.

"Miaow. I'm not a wolf," she said softly. "I'm not even a dog, silly. I'm just a person." So why was it so bloody hard to decide what to do with herself? She closed the door, ran downstairs and strode across the small hall to the empty reception desk. She checked the guest register and saw one name not yet ticked off as checked in. Mr James Bond. She snorted. Well, there was a fake name if she ever saw one. Quietly, she opened the door behind the desk and peeked inside. Uncle Matthew was watching the telly, a cat on his shoulder and another on his lap, and glanced up and made room for her beside him. His hand squeezed her shoulder reassuringly, as she leaned her head on his free shoulder and they both giggled at the comedy skit on the screen.

"Waiting for the last guest?" she asked. 

"Yeah, one bloke. He should be here soon." He cast her a sidelong gaze that she felt more than saw. "Can't sleep, poppet?"

"Uncle Matthew! It's just ten o'clock. I'm nineteen, not middle-aged!"

"No, that would be me," he said wryly. "You should go join Niki and her mates at the café."

"Don't feel like it tonight..."

"The full moon getting close?"

She glanced aside quickly without quite meeting his eyes, then pulled a face. "Perhaps. I don't know. I get so antsy and irritable. I want company, but then everything bores me. I don't want to snap at people, fall out with friends..."

"It's got much better, though, since the spring."

"Oh yeah. I know that."

He shook his head slowly, beside her. "So maybe you're just bored. This place is a lot less lively this time of year."

She pressed her lips together, unwilling to follow the conversation where he was gently leading it. "It will be more lively when that conference of Squibs arrives from Athens on Friday night."

"That's just a weekend, love. And after that it will get even more quiet."

"The holidays have some traffic, don't they?"

Uncle Matthew gave her head a mild rub as if she were one of the cats. "Young lady... don't you think your mum would love to see you back home in England at some point?" 

Lavender sat up straight, emitting a giant sigh. "She has hinted very strongly about that, yes." He watched her with shrewd understanding in his very blue eyes. People who thought Squibs were dull, should meet Matthew Rowe, she thought, not for the first time. He was tall, dark and handsome, practical, perceptive, a whiz with numbers, charming with the guests, cats and dogs adored him, lovely singing voice, awesome in the kitchen and Uncle Manouil had on one unfortunate occasion implied that he was good in bed too, though Lavender had plugged her ears then and blanched at contemplating the thought further. They were her uncles, bloody hell.

He was kind-hearted, too, and didn't press the point further. "Can't beat Buster Keaton for a laugh," he said, nodding at the screen. 

"I do think I like him best," said Lavender. "Though Harold Lloyd cracks me up, too. He always makes me think of Harry; the glasses, you know. And surviving the most breakneck situations."

"Oh yes, Harry Potter." Uncle Matthew did keep up with the English wizarding world, even all the way from Greece, and amazingly didn't seem bitter or torn-up about having missed out on the most crucial factor of it all. "What's he up to, these days?"

"He's going to be an Auror and keep saving the world, from what I hear." Lavender got up from the clutches of the deep sofa with some effort. "I, however, am just going down to the beach."

"Don't swim there alone, so late. Better take a dip in the pool in that case." 

"Nah, I'll just toss a few pebbles. Whine at the waves. Since I'm not really qualified to howl at the moon."

"Whine all you want, poppet. Howl if you will. You never know, it might help." While he spoke, the bell rang in the reception and he shifted Aris down from his shoulder and Platon off of his lap. "There's our guest, now."

"Ta," said Lavender and slipped out the patio door.

One of the tables under the partial roof were still occupied by chatting, laughing guests, but they paid her no mind and she took the shortcut of steep stone steps down to the beach. They were getting slippery with rain and she navigated them carefully. The Fortezza loomed to her right, a formidable silhouette against the sky, illuminated by the lights from the Venetian Harbour and Rethymnon's old town. The moon — gibbous, she noted, a word she'd not properly learned the meaning of until the last year — sailed low in the sky between grey wind-torn clouds, casting an uncertain pale rippling path toward her across the dark Sea of Crete.

Faintly through the open doors she heard her uncle's voice and another, lower one, sounding vaguely posh, subdued and tired. It reminded her of someone that she couldn't place. Mr James Bond. She couldn't help giggling, and wondered, as she picked up a couple of shiny flat pebbles, what nefarious business he was up to in Rethymnon under that ridiculous name. And whether he was young and dishy; the clientele had been awfully old and stodgy lately. Of course, most of them were gay, to boot. Drat. She was kind of going to seed here. Maybe Uncle Matthew was right and she just needed to haul arse back home. Which reminded her of the letter to Parvati that she _still_ hadn't finished and sent.

With a low curse, she pulled her arm back and let the first skipping stone fly in three... four... five long jumps over the restless waves, right into the sodding moon.

***

Draco emptied the bottle of Ogden's he'd packed in his suitcase, then raided the mini-bar, and fell asleep like the dead sometime after midnight. He was up in the morning to use the loo, gulp down a large glass of water and hang out the "Do Not Disturb" sign, then reeled straight back into bed, his head pounding, and slept for another eight hours.

He woke up as the sun was setting, and lay blinking slowly awake. The memory of the preceding day hit him at once and he groaned, trying again to tangle betrayal from humiliation from numb relief, and all of that from the vice of a headache squeezing his skull. Finally he swung his feet down on the floor, and after a trip to the bathroom and a quick shower he capitulated and rummaged through his suitcase for the hangover potion that Pansy had pushed at him together with the Ogden's at the last minute. A few sips of that, and the headache receded. It was such a relief that he felt almost cheerful for a moment.

That quickly changed as he became aware of a persistent pecking at the balcony door. He walked over to it and let in the familiar tawny owl that perched on the sill. It dropped the day's issue of the _Daily Prophet_ on the floor, and Draco could see his own pale, miserable mug stare back at him from the front page. They'd used a photo from his Wizengamot hearing last year. Bastards. He glared at the innocent messenger. "Thank you, Freya. That's too kind." 

There was a short note attached in Pansy's energetic, rounded scrawl. _Sorry, darling, I know it's unpleasant reading, but better to be informed about what's going on, than not. Rumour has it Tracey's parents are trying to find her and herd her back to the altar. Haven't been able to ascertain whether your parents are amenable to a truce, but I get the sense that pragmatism may win out. (Up for a second try?) Your father's nose is fine, if you're wondering; he's nursing a grudge, of course, but Narcissa has got the situation in hand. How are you?_

Draco needed a drink again, already. The idea of a second try absolutely turned his stomach, especially now that he knew exactly how unwilling Tracey would be, and why. Freya hooted for a treat and Draco cast about the room and spotted the half-empty bag of crisps lying on his nightstand. He took a handful for himself and gave the rest to Freya, munching gloomily at the disgusting greasy stuff as he read Rita Skeeter's take on his predicament. _Malfoy mortified as best mate Nott sweeps bride away from wedding!_ screeched the headline. Most of the article was gleeful variations over that theme, supplied with speculations on whether he'd cheated on his bride-to-be — bride-to-have-been? — and where on earth the three main actors were hiding out now. The first was quite rich, he felt, considering the kidnapping — bride-napping — that had taken place clearly pointed in the opposite direction. They were fortunately entirely mistaken as to his whereabouts. Whether Tracey and Theodore had actually caught a Portkey out of the country, he had no idea and didn't want to think about. If he hadn't felt so stabbed in the back, he would just have hoped they'd have the sense to get hitched as soon as possible and render his parents' machinations moot. Of course, it remained to be seen whether Tracey would let love win out over familial loyalty, which after all had carried her as far as the altar.

Theodore. Draco felt his stomach plummet again as he finally allowed the thought to sink in. They'd always been friends of sorts, but in the summer after their sixth year, when Voldemort was crashing into his home and his life and Greg and Vince were being so gleefully obtuse he couldn't bear it, Theodore had been there, had understood the extent of the catastrophe, had tried his best to help in any way he could. After the war, during Draco's Wizengamot trial, he'd been a rock. He'd been at every one of the parties and events Draco had attended with Tracey over their six-month engagement.

While thinking of Theo was a punch to the gut, the thought of Tracey was more like ripping off a bit of plaster. Though she'd been at the periphery of Pansy's clique, he'd never been very aware of her until his parents presented the engagement to him as a _fait accompli_. She'd been one of the most quiet students in their year, and had always seemed aloof and self-sufficient. And, he had to admit, she'd been a half-blood, which had stupidly seemed to matter, back then. He wondered now if she'd avoided him, in fact. How long had she and Theo been in love? Why hadn't they just fucking told him? 

The owl, having emptied the bag and chased it over the edge of the table, stretched out its wings and jumped to the window ledge, and Draco reached out and tapped its wing. "Hang on." He found parchment, quills and ink in his suitcase and dipped the quill, hesitating with the nib poised over the parchment while he tried to gather his thoughts.

He gave up on coherence, just scrawled _Spiffing, thanks. I'd rather marry that bloody Hippogriff, to be honest. Appreciate you filling me in. Love, D_ at the bottom of Pansy's note and sent the owl on its way with it. Out into Crete, it occurred to him. The balcony door still stood ajar and he walked outside. It was a nice evening, noticeably warmer than when he'd arrived last night, and the sunset cast a postcard pretty glow over the sea, the white houses and red roofs. He took it in with distanced neutrality. It had been his mother's idea that since the honeymoon was already paid for, and the destination had successfully been kept secret, he might as well come here and lie low while the first and worst of the scandal died down. It had niggled persistently at him, though, that the largest wizarding hotel on Crete was hardly a safe hideout, and arriving at Chania he'd walked straight into a Tourist Information Centre and booked a different hotel — a Muggle hotel — in Rethymnon. It had the added benefit of being unknown to his parents for the time being, although truthfully, he'd picked it on a pettily rebellious impulse based on the name, imagining it might upset them. Looking around the room, he saw that it was hardly fancy, but it was charming in a rustic way, clean as far as he could tell and the bed had been comfortable, and that was just about as far as he cared.

The Englishman in the reception last night had told him that the hotel also ran the restaurant the next door down on the same street, where breakfast was served daily. It was rather too late for breakfast, but Draco was starving, so he got dressed and walked downstairs. It was a Greek teenage girl at the reception desk now and as he passed her, she greeted him with a friendly smile and asked in near-perfect English whether he was all rested, and if he were happy with everything. That would be a gross overstatement, but he was content enough with anything she had any control over, and Draco nodded and thanked her curtly, grateful simply not to be recognised, stared at, or whispered about. Maybe he'd just live out the rest of his days as a Muggle. His father's reaction alone would have made it worth it.

The restaurant had a few tables lined up against the wall outside, but he ventured indoors to a small partly covered courtyard, where tea-lights glowed on every table. There were several free ones and he took the liberty of seating himself, picking up the menu that lay on the table. He hadn't eaten anything substantial since early afternoon the day before, and his stomach rumbled as he pondered his choices. He decided quickly on the food, but didn't know the first thing about Muggle wines.

" _Kalispéra, Kýrie_! Are you happy with this table? There's a free one with an ocean view outside on the terrace."

Despite the Greek greeting, the question was posed in what sounded like a native-born West Country accent, and Draco glanced up from his menu and found that the smiling, pretty girl in blue who was patiently waiting for his reply did indeed look more English than Greek. 

Not to mention, extremely familiar. Recognition struck at the same moment in them both, plain to see in her suddenly wide eyes. Draco felt his stomach lurch, and gave her an appalled glare. 

"Oh, for pity's sake," he snapped. "Is the world not large enough?" Her name eluded him, but he remembered her, all right. That daft little thing who'd been so pathetic about Ron Weasley back in their sixth year. Greyback had mauled her, he'd heard, and that seemed to be true. 

Her surprise had heated quickly into a corresponding flash of temper. "Malfoy! Ever the gentleman, I see!" He could practically hear her count to ten before she smiled at him with poisonous, exaggerated sweetness. "Oh, pardon, it's _Mr Bond_ , isn't it? May I take your order, double-oh-seven?" She pronounced the name as if it were the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard, practically snorting when she added that weird row of numbers, and Draco seethed, secretly worrying whether his quick research into Muggle names from a newspaper stand in Chania had been a little too hasty.

There was no shortage of restaurants in Rethymnon, and he was on his way to get up from his chair when he saw a little didn't-I-know-it smirk form on her lips. He flushed and paused, unwilling to give her the satisfaction of influencing his decision, yet uncomfortably aware that she'd get that satisfaction no matter what he did, now. He sank back. So be it. He'd go to a different place tomorrow and meanwhile he could, if nothing else, look forward to repaying her insolence with a minuscule tip. Or perhaps better yet, a patronisingly high-handed one. 

He glanced at his menu again, and in a bored voice he ordered what he'd already settled on. "The Greek salad, the moussaka and—" he picked a red wine at random — "half a bottle of the 1996 Merlot, please."

There was a subtle roll of her eyes this time, and it set his teeth on edge. "What?" he inquired coolly.

She shook her head. "Greek salad, moussaka and the Merlot, got it."

"No, do enlighten me." He leaned forward, pleased that he'd got his temper under control. "What's wrong with your Greek salad and moussaka? What exactly are you implying about the quality of the food you're serving?"

"Nothing!" The haughty toss of her head sent her dark blonde hair flying over her shoulder as she glared at him. "Eleni is a fantastic cook. But your choices are, like, the worst cliché of what every British tourist orders in Greece."

He raised his eyebrows. "Wouldn't have pegged you for a food snob," he drawled.

"Wouldn't ever have pegged you for less than a snob," she sniped back.

"And do you comment so scathingly on every British tourist's order, or am I being given preferential treatment?"

"When have you not been given preferential treatment, Malfoy?" she said, her smile sweetly insulting. "I wouldn't want to throw you for a loop."

His jaw clenched, but he let it go and inclined his head in sarcastic acknowledgement. "Well, in that case, oh sage one, please favour me with your recommendations."

She narrowed her eyes in response to the studied mockery in his. "Starter and main course?"

"Please."

"The grilled octopus platter. And the sautéed sea bass if you'd like fish, the lamb carré if you prefer meat."

He glanced at the wine list. "Very well, I'll take the grilled octopus, and the sea bass. Which wine would you suggest?"

"The 1998 Kalípso Assyrtiko," she said promptly. "From our own winery. The Assyrtiko is a native Greek grape variety, very crisp and tangy. It's lovely with fish and seafood."

"So forthcoming on details, all of a sudden. Do you get percentages?" he asked dryly.

She tilted her chin up, giving him a withering look. "I only get the gratification of a satisfied customer."

"I'd better be." 

She scoffed. "Or what, Malfoy, you're going to Crucio me? Do you really miss the war that much?"

He caught a stunned breath, blindsided, and saw her expression change to abrupt alarm as she realised she'd well overstepped a line. After a few seconds' mutually appalled silence, Draco gave her an icy, if weary smile and got up on his feet. "On second thoughts, I presume we'll both have a more agreeable evening if we don't spend it in each other's company."

She grimaced. "No, wait, Malfoy, I... I apologise." Reaching out, she touched his upper arm.

He glanced down at her hand. "Don't worry; you're not worth the effort of complaining to the management," he said, with just enough of a sneer to make her blush and drop her hand.

"No, that's not — crap." She shook her head, biting her lip in what did seem like genuine, if reluctant remorse. "I don't give a fig if you complain. But... that was uncalled for — after all that stuff in the papers this morning; I mean, you must have had a horrid couple of days—" He jerked his head down to fix her with a warning stare, and she broke off at once. He could see her indignation fight to the surface, again. "But honestly, what did you expect, coming here all snooty and going, 'Is the world not big enough'!" She mimicked a disdainful, upper-crust tone with deadly accuracy. "As if I'm here on Crete to intrude on your precious personal space. As if everyone's life is a servile little footnote to yours! Merlin, the size of the stick up your arse, Malfoy!"

Draco scowled at her, unwillingly sucked in by the impatient appeal in her eyes. Everything about her at first glance looked soft: almost childlike rounded cheeks, generous lips, big eyes smudged with sooty curved lashes. Even the raised, pale pink scars over her cheek and jaw suggested the vulnerability of a hurt child. Those eyes though, cool green with a ring of brown fire around the pupil, they had a level sharpness in them, and all at once, he wondered what they'd look like when she was hot and aroused. He swallowed hard in surprise as the clear visual caused a thick, bold swell in his groin.

"What's your name?" he asked abruptly.

"What—" She gaped, and apparently this was an affront far worse than any of the previous. "You don't even _remember_ me?"

"Of course I remember _you_ ," Draco said impatiently. "Just not, right this moment, your given name." It was on the tip of his tongue. "Rosemary. No."

"Well, that's nice!" She pointed at the chair. "Sit your arse down if you're staying, or get the hell out of here if you're leaving. Make up your bloody mind."

Some of the patrons had begun to stare, and a tall, thin woman wearing a black apron over a floral print dress came hurrying out from the kitchen, clearly alerted by someone to the ongoing hostilities. Draco stifled a groan. With deliberate, insolent grace he sank down on the chair, arching an eyebrow at two avidly curious men a few tables over. They hastily looked away.

"I expect quick service to make up for the staff's appalling attitude," he said calmly.

"I expect a generous tip to make up for the customer's same!"

"Lévanta," the woman said, touching the irate waitress's arm and addressing her in rapid-fire Greek. And then she turned to Draco, in halting English, with a look of barely withheld blame that suggested this wasn't her usual experience with her employee. "Is a problem, _Kýrie_?"

"No, no, everything is fine," he reassured her with a polite smile. Lévanta, the woman had called the girl, and he had enough of a smattering of Greek for Potions' purposes for memory to finally click into place. Lavender, of course. He'd known it was something botanical. Lavender Brown. "My apologies for holding up your employee. We're old acquaintances. I'll let her get back to her duties, now."

He wasn't sure how much the woman understood of his words, but his placating tone had the desired effect. She nodded warily, squeezed the girl's arm again and hurried back out of the room. 

Brown's behaviour toward him was frostily impeccable for the rest of his meal. He heard her laugh and chat and flirt as she moved between the tables, slender and pretty in her blue dress, only for her voice to sprout icicles whenever she approached his table and inquired if everything were to his satisfaction. Practically daring him to complain. It shouldn't have bothered him — he could hear his father in his head, dripping contempt on Gryffindor plebes — but his father's voice had lost the authority it had once held, and it did get to him, as much as he hated to admit it to himself. 

The adrenaline of the quarrel, almost a welcome distraction, had evaporated, leaving him feeling wrong-footed and foolish. _'Is the world not large enough?'_ He heard his words in her sarcastic repetition again, and felt a flush creep up his neck. She hadn't so much as looked at him wrong. All he could remember seeing in her face, before he'd lashed out, was surprise. And the fact was, it came too fucking easy to him to be a condescending git. He'd been raised as one, and insults rolled very easily off his tongue. But this... hadn't even been that, at least at first. He'd been defensive and had bitten her head off.

He finished his meal, which he couldn't find fault with, try as he might. It was simple yet skilfully prepared, flavourful and delicate in presentation, more than up to par with what was served out of the manor's kitchen on any given day. The crisp wine flattered the food to perfection. He considered an espresso to round off the meal, but decided he'd endured his waitress's cold shoulder long enough. Leaving enough money on the table to include a tip that was generous, but not ostentatious, he rose up and left. 

She hailed him, sounding out of breath, as he took the first few steps down the cobbled street. "Malfoy. _Oi!_ "

"Lavender Brown," he sighed, reluctantly slowing his steps. "This had better be good." He turned with an acerbic look. "And no, that's not a threat to Crucio you if it's not."

She looked sheepish, but then her expression brightened. "You do remember me!"

"I told you, it was merely your first name eluding me. We were hardly friends, so I don't know why you would take such a minor slight to heart."

She shrugged, and her cheeks turned pink. "Who wants to be unmemorable?"

"At the moment, I would consider it a blessing, personally," he said with absolute honesty. "Now, if there's nothing in particular that you want from me, I mean to go back to my room."

"But I didn't get to recommend dessert to you!"

"I'm not a dessert person." 

"That's only because you haven't tasted Eleni's baklava."

"Baklava? Isn't that a terribly... English tourist in Greece cliché?" 

She grinned and glanced down, kicking at a cobblestone underfoot. "Oops. Touché."

He shook his head, regarding her with chilly incomprehension. "You were looking at me like a piece of dirt caught under your shoe in there, so—" He swept out an arm. "Why this unexpected, albeit heart-warming compulsion to make sure I don't miss out on dessert?"

"I was unprofessional, even if provoked, and you could have used the tip to make a point," she said earnestly. "I was sure that you would, and you didn't. And—" She sighed. "Look, I've got a temper, it's no secret. Especially after... anyway, I flare up and it passes quickly. As stupid as that greeting of yours was, I get that you were shocked to see someone from home, and I'm over it. Truce?" 

She'd cupped her scarred jaw, seemingly unaware, when she started the comment that trailed off. Draco studied her for a moment. "I don't know, I'm more of a grudge-holder, myself. I'm not sure I can do conciliation at such dizzying speed."

Her expression fell, absurdly dejected. "Right."

Draco ran a hand back through his hair and glanced away. "However... I'm willing to concede that my initial greeting to you may have... lacked something in civility. So—" He met her gaze again, expecting to regret the impulse even as he spoke the words. "Perhaps, if I drop by another night, you can recommend dessert. Preferably something not soaked in honey, for God's sake."

Her smile was tentative, yet so uncomplicated it shocked him. "I don't work Wednesdays nights. But if you drop by tomorrow or Thursday, you're on."

"We'll see," Draco said, firmly deciding against it even as he spoke, and gave her a brisk nod. "Goodnight, Brown."

" _Kali bradi_ ," she said cheerfully, and slipped back into the restaurant.

***

When Draco came back to his room, the ghost was waiting for him on top of the dresser, dangling her legs slowly.

Draco's knees felt like jelly for a moment, and he leaned back against the closing door. For once, he had nowhere else he could readily escape to. He couldn't go to his rooms or Apparate over to Theo's or Pansy's, as he did when she appeared in the hall. He couldn't run down and sit with the house elves in the kitchen, as he did when she appeared in his bedroom at night. He could pace the streets of this unfamiliar town in the hope she would go away, but that didn't seem like much of a solution. Draco stared at her, and didn't make the decision to speak; the words just tumbled out on their own. "Please, just leave me alone! It wasn't me; I never hurt you. It's not fair to follow me here! What do you want from me?"

She shook her head. "Not now, dear. You're on holiday! I happen to adore Greece, and I just wanted to tell you that you ought to go and see the Palace of Knossos," she said, smiling in encouragement. "Granted, the restorations are somewhat disputed, but it stands as one of the most beautiful Muggle achievements of the world!" 

She started humming a Greek-sounding tune as she slid off the dresser, and Draco followed her with his eyes, his heart thumping in his chest as she glided silvery across the room, through the window, and seemed to dissolve into the blue moonlight.

***

_Dear Parvati,_

_You'll never guess who is staying at the_ Andromeda _since the evening before last! Think someone rather dishy who was plastered across the front page of the Prophet today and who is almost as much of an arse as ever... but maybe only almost, and I'm working on it._

_Yours,_

_Lavender_

_P.S. This is supposed to be secret, I think. Don't tell a living soul!_

_P.P.S. And no one dead, either. I mean it!_

_P.P.P.S. Think he's gay? I suppose that might explain why his bride bolted. (But I hope not.)_

Well, thought Lavender as she sent the owl on its way, that was more like it! That wasn't boring at all; in fact, it was exciting, mysterious and downright fun! Exactly like her!

She still hadn't answered Parvati's question, it occurred to her. She quickly put out the light, jumped into bed and tried to think of anything else. Draco Malfoy and his troubled love life would do.

***

Six o'clock the next morning found her sitting with Matthew and Manouil, Eleni and Niki around a table in the kitchen restaurant, trying to wake up over a large cup of tea and a bowl of thick yoghurt with walnuts and honey. A portable electric oven warmed the room, and Lavender had cast a few heating charms, as well. Aris, Soks and Platon lay so close to the oven it was a wonder their fur didn't singe. It was looking to be a great day, but early morning was nippy this time of year.

"I don't know why you always drag me out of bed at the arse crack of dawn," complained Niki in her posh schoolgirl English. 

"Nikoleta!" said Eleni with a sigh.

"Only to give you the pleasure of saying 'arse crack of dawn', dear," said Uncle Matthew dryly. It was Niki's current favourite English expression, and she used it practically every morning to her mother's displeasure. 

Niki flushed slightly and tossed her thick dark plait over her shoulder, and his mouth twitched. He was mainlining black coffee, head bent over the local morning paper, but turned to Lavender now, with a mild frown. "Say, what was up with you and our newest guest last night? An old schoolmate of yours, Eleni said."

"Mmmh," said Lavender, pondering how much to tell.

"So he's a wizard?" asked Niki, her eyes avidly wide. 

"Yup," said Lavender, still pondering. At sixteen, it had only been this summer that Niki had been let in on the big family secret concerning the world from which Lavender and Matthew both hailed. She was as hyped about it on Lavender's behalf as she was pissed off on Matthew's. She'd also acted extremely vindicated upon learning, after weeks of amassing an inferiority complex, that it was an unfair congenital advantage — a superpower, as Niki liked to call it — that made Lavender able to clean and tidy four rooms in the time it took her to do one.

"You and this man, you quarrel, Lévanta," said Eleni pointedly across the table, worry and curiosity in her eyes as she glanced aside at her brother, as if apologising to Lavender for alerting him to the incident. But Manouil didn't say anything, so far.

"Yeah," Lavender admitted, "he started it, I rose to the bait, and I shouldn't have. But we straightened things out before he left. And I did apologise," she added hastily with a glance at Manouil.

"Was he rude to you? Was it—?" Matthew trailed off and frowned, and Lavender met his gaze squarely.

"The scars? Nope. I think it just caught him off guard to see me here." 

"Is he one of the bad guys?" asked Niki. "From the war?" Niki and Eleni knew very little about the wizarding war beyond the fact that Lavender had been hurt in a big battle, though Uncle Matthew had probably explained a bit more to Manouil.

She shrugged. "In a way. He was a giant arseho... er," she corrected quickly after a look from Eleni, "very unpleasant in school, to be honest. But... it's not that simple. Fact is, we were just kids for most of that time. Family affiliation decided a lot. And his family was... is... pretty horrid." On an impulse, she added the more current news she had about Malfoy. "He was ditched at the altar, the day before yesterday. His bride ran away with his best mate, apparently, just as they were about to say their marriage vows."

"Oh! But he came here, to _Andromeda_ ," said Niki. "Is he gay? Maybe that's why she ran away with someone else?" 

"I doubt it. He probably doesn't even know this is promoted as an LGBT friendly hotel. He looked all mopey and heart-broken, so I reckon we might as well be nice."

At this, Uncle Manouil finally chimed in. He'd been sitting quietly beside Matthew, sipping his coffee and quickly pencilling in the paper's daily crossword with quick strokes that looked like, well, Greek, to Lavender. But now he laid down the pencil, folded his big arms across his barrel chest, cleared his deep voice, and gave them all an admonishing look under bushy eyebrows. 

"Good guy or bad guy. English or Greek. Gay or straight. Wizard or not. This man is our guest at _Andromeda_ ," he said severely. "Of course we shall be nice. We shall be all be very, _very_ nice." 

***

After his morning shower, Draco took stock of what he might have of Muggle-passing clothes, and settled on a linen suit and a crisp white shirt. He'd noted that male Muggle tourists on the island generally wore less formal attire, like over-pocketed khaki shorts, baggy t-shirts and sandals (although the hotel clientele he'd observed had been surprisingly well put together), but a Malfoy did have certain sartorial standards to consider.

Fergus, his parents' big eagle owl, arrived with a letter. At first he tried to ignore it, recognising the bird, but finally surrendered to the furious pecking at the pane and put the missive aside, unopened, before he went to have his breakfast in the restaurant. Brown wasn't there, not that he was looking for her, or missed her. He asked directions from the Englishman at the reception desk, and walked along the coastal road that was loud and dusty with automobile traffic in four lanes and two directions, looking toward the Venetian fortress that stood weathered and graceful against the bright blue sky, seemingly elevated above mundane reality. He asked twice, and after ten minutes' walk finally found what he was looking for — in part. The bus station was there. The bus to Heraklion was not, and the driver of another bus told him in halting English that it had just left and there would be nearly an hour's wait for the next one.

Irresolute, Draco walked up the road, wincing at the noise and the fumes from the traffic. Blasted Muggle devil machines. Well, it couldn't be far to walk into the old town of Rethymnon, and it had to be infinitely preferable to this. He might take a stroll up to the fortress, too, look inside the mosque. It was supposed to be worth a visit, according to the brochures in his hotel room.

However, as he started up the hill, a tiny motorbike swung in to the kerb and came to a screeching halt just past him. He threw an annoyed look over his shoulder, unprepared to see the driver turn to him and hail him with a cheerful, " _Kaliméra_!"

"Um... Brown?" he said, after a second, not quite decided whether to give a casual greeting and walk on or to stop for whatever it was she wanted. He had time to waste, though, and he shrugged and walked back just as she took off her helmet and grinned at him, her hair dancing on her shoulders. 

"Hey, what's up? Missed your bus?" Her little motorbike — more bike than motor, it looked like — was baby pink, of all the offensive shades. 

"How did you know I missed my bus?" he asked, frowning at her question as he took in the colourful sight of her, in bright pink lipgloss, frayed denim shorts, lace-up blue sneakers and a white leather jacket over a little yellow top.

"Spied on you. Nah, just kidding. Not the most picturesque part of the town, is it? The bus station is basically the draw, here." She tilted her head, studying him in a way that, unaccountably, made him nervous. "Where were you going to?"

"Heraklion, to catch the shuttle bus to Knossos."

"There are Apparition spots, you know. Less traffic, fewer Mudbloods to piss you off..."

Draco gave her an exasperated look. "I'm not pissed off." 

She gave him an impish, toothy grin, and he realised that she'd been firmly yanking his chain with that one. "You did look a little pissed off, Malfoy..."

"Because I'd missed my bus," he explained with strained patience.

"Mm-hmm. How long are you staying for?"

"A few days at most."

"You can go to Knossos another day, then." She drew something from her pocket and let it rest in her palm, discreetly shook her wand out of her sleeve and tapped it to the object. It resized itself to a helmet similar to hers, only bright sky blue where hers was pink to match the bike. "Hop on," she said, holding it out to him by the chin strap.

"What? Hell, no! Why on earth should I go with you on that ridiculous contraption? I have no death wish." He stared at her, wondering if she were a little mad. Then again, he was the one out sightseeing on Crete at the directions of a ghost. "I don't even know where you're going!"

"No, you don't, do you? Exciting, isn't it?" She winked at him, and he narrowed his eyes.

"Oh, I think I can guess," he sneered. "A beach that reeks of suntan lotion? A Muggle shopping street? I had plans for cultural enrichment today."

"Muggle-cultural, at that. Via Muggle transport. So your scorn seems a bit hastily put on — Draco." She pronounced his name very deliberately, thoughtfully, almost a pause between the two syllables. It called his attention to the fact that they hardly knew each other and she ought not feel free to take such liberties at all. Draco felt foolish enough about the Muggle transport already, but Apparating straight into a big Muggle tourist attraction he'd never been to had seemed positively foolhardy. He was about to cave and ask about the Apparition spots, but a passing car honked long and angrily at them and made him jump, and she dangled the helmet on one finger by the chin strap. "You have three seconds to decide — twoooo..." She jiggled the helmet and grinned at him in blatant challenge. "One—"

"Don't be ridiculous!" he snapped. He stared at her a moment and then grabbed the helmet and tapped his wand to it, changing it to black, and raised it over his head to put it on as she did the same. This was murder on one's hairstyle, he thought wildly. It had to be.

"Tighten the strap more," she admonished him as he swung his leg over to straddle the bike behind her. "Feet on the footboard." The motor gave a little growl and Draco threw his arms around her waist with something that most certainly wasn't a shout, as she made a U-turn that felt positively lethal and manoeuvred them back into the traffic. "Oh yeah, and hold on tight," she yelled over her shoulder. "Forgot to say!"

It was like being a passenger on a poorly ridden broom, although it was more dusty and smelly and uncomfortable in every way. The cars at such close proximity were downright terrifying, and — he could well be going mad, but weren't they all driving on the wrong side, too? He did hold on tight with as much dignity as he could manage as she weaved her little vehicle amongst the bigger cars. Brown was quite a bit smaller than him and he could see over her shoulder with no problem. He had a good view of her thighs, firm and shapely, tanned and silky smooth. He focussed on them, breathing slowly, until his stomach got queasy from the speed and the fumes and movement and he had to look up to anticipate the flow of traffic.

After a few minutes, they were out of the town and outlying areas, and there were olive groves and green fields in their place. To his right, the ocean stretched out in a transcendent, sunlit glimmer, flanked by one hotel after another. The traffic thinned out, as well, and the fear of imminent death left him sufficiently that he finally had the presence of mind to get annoyed. Why the hell had he done something so daft? How had this Gryffindor chit got the better of him with a taunting grin and a beckoning finger? She'd have to stop eventually, he decided, and then he'd offer up a sarcastic thanks for the experience and Apparate straight back to the bus station. It would be nothing more than a wasted hour, and he'd get on with his actual plans for the day.

Soon she swung southward away from the ocean, onto a smaller road. Here, with the cars more scarce, it _was_ a bit like flying, except with a closer view of things they passed. The landscape was arid yet lush, rock and dry soil sprouting startling green growth, with a searingly pure sky vaulted over it. Vineyards and rows of olive trees lined the road, and the land was gradually inclining toward hilly, blue mountains rising in the distance, capped with a dusting of snow. He kept his arms clasped firmly around Brown's midriff, squinting against the sun and the rush of air, and decided that he at the very least could enjoy the warmth of a girl's trim, soft body against his chest, the warmth of the sun on his face. 

And the fact that the bike was running cheerfully on to some random destination that was entirely out of his hands and unrelated to any of the insane mess going on in his life... well, strange as it was, that didn't feel entirely disagreeable, either.

Just as that thought crossed his mind, as if to spite him the bike slowed, wavered for a few seconds, then came to a halt with the motor noise falling to an uncertain whine and a dry, coughing sputter. Brown slid half off the bike and banged on the handlebar with her fist. "Bugger, crap, shite! I was going to tank up before I left town!" Her voice was defensive and bewildered as she whipped around to face him. "You distracted me, Malfoy!" 

Draco had drawn breath for his own ill-tempered tirade, but this accusation was both so ridiculously unfair yet perversely so flattering to his abused ego, that it threw him off. He'd never had reason to doubt his attractiveness, was probably a bit vain about it, in truth (he heard Pansy cackling hysterically somewhere in his head), but being publicly jilted on his wedding day would do a number on any man's confidence. He dismounted the bike and took off the helmet, smoothing his hair back into place with a hand. "My profuse apologies for being distracting." He nodded at the bike. "I take it you can Apparate somewhere and get some... thing... for that... thing?" 

"Fuel, yeah. Petrol." She gave an irritable shrug and took off her helmet, shaking her hair out with a toss of her head. "It's an extremely inflammable substance and I have no clue how Muggle flammables interact with Apparition, so... I reckon I'll roll the bike to the next station, to be sure I don't end my life in flames."

"You're joking." He squinted up the road. It wound uphill for perhaps half a mile before disappearing behind a rocky outcrop. "Do you even have any idea where the next one is?" 

"It might be a mile or two. Or three. Thank god the villages are close here." She dismounted, as well. "Can't very well Levitate it along, either; there's bound to be cars passing by."

He shook his head, bemused. "Why do you use such a hopelessly impractical method of transportation at all, Brown?"

"It's not that impractical! Well, not usually." She patted the pink abomination tenderly. "I imagine riding this little beauty gives me the same rush that flying a broomstick does, for those who enjoy that. I'm not that good on a broom, but this lets me fly in a way. Anyway, come on. It's less than half an hour, if we're lucky."

He huffed out a laugh. " _We_? I don't believe I signed up for this. You practically kidnapped me in the first place!" 

"Oh, _right_. Chivalry is not a Slytherin trait, silly me!" Her voice snapped with disappointment, and that astounded him somewhat. As though she'd expected otherwise from him. Well, too bad. She'd brought this mishap upon herself, and she ought to be capable of rolling the small bike a mile or two on her own. This was his cue to Apparate back and get on with his day, just as he'd decided to do, the only sensible thing to do. 

Except he found that he wasn't so eager to get back to the bus station, to travel with a busload of sweaty Muggle strangers, on a mission that in fact wasn't sensible at all but an act of... what, he wasn't quite sure, only that it would likely make him feel like shit and that its futility was guaranteed. And... it was a hot day, and a long uphill climb for her, and he _had_ been raised as the little gentleman by his mother. Only toward little pureblood ladies, true, but he could adapt.

"Indeed. Slytherin is all about the self-interest. And I was actually starting to enjoy this hare-brained idea, so—" He shrugged off his jacket and flung it over his shoulder, folded up his shirt sleeves, then grabbed the handles of the bike and shoved it into motion. "Let's go."

She stood there agape for a moment, then narrowed her eyes at him. "Really?"

"Yes, really, but I don't intend to do this on my own, Brown, so get a move on."

She danced up to his side, the bike between them as she grabbed the handlebar from her side. "I never doubted you, Malfoy. Not for a second."

He couldn't help himself; he gave a dry bark of laughter. "I could tell. Where are we going, anyway?"

Brown grinned at him. "You mean you don't want to be surprised?"

"Not really."

"But I do want to surprise you, so I'm not telling."

He rolled his eyes. "All right, how about telling me why you are working as a waitress on Crete?"

She seemed skittish for a moment — it was in the guarded look she threw him, the jaunty little shrug. "Are you just making small talk, or are you really interested?"

"I'm interested in not pushing this bike up that hill for the next half hour in oppressive silence. If you'd rather talk about the weather, by all means, let us have your thoughts."

"It's hot. That just about exhausts _that_ topic."

"So?" 

"I've got family here. My Uncle Matthew who you met the first night, who is sort-of-married to my Uncle Manouil. He and Uncle Matthew run the hotel, and Manouil's sister Eleni runs the restaurant next door. Her daughter Niki helps out, too. I call Eleni my aunt and Niki my cousin, although they aren't technically. My uncle is a Squib," she added, her gaze defiant as it met his, "but Uncle Manouil and his family are Muggle."

That seemed... entirely too complicated, and he didn't ask further. He certainly didn't want the discussion about Muggles or Squibs that she seemed to expect from him. "So you're... on holiday, or—?" He _was_ curious, he realised. She was changed, somehow, from the giggly, annoying girl he remembered from school. Not that she wasn't annoying, but — her annoyingness somehow didn't annoy him as much. He found himself intrigued by her solemn eyes and her reckless grin and he wondered how the change had come about.

"It's an extended working holiday, I guess you might say. I help out with the restaurant and the rooms. I've been here since May. I... had some trouble—" she let go of the bike a moment and said the next word making ironic little air quotes with her fingers, " _adjusting_ , back home. After the war." She raised a hand toward her face, but let it fall diffidently. "You know?"

"The scars?" he asked. Too brutally, perhaps; he'd have wanted to hex anyone who'd called attention to his own marks so off-hand — not that he didn't keep them well covered up — but what else could that gesture mean?

And in fact, she didn't flinch. She actually looked relieved. "Yep. It wasn't easy. How everyone expects you to carry it proudly like a badge of honour. I hated people staring. But every time I hid them with a glamour I felt I was, like, betraying the Secret Code of Heroes or something."

"Bloody Gryffs, eh?" 

"They meant well," she said with a crooked smile. 

Draco snorted. "Of course they did." 

"They kept telling me I was beautiful. _So_ beautiful, even _more_ beautiful now," she said with a wry twist of her lips as she mimicked the reassurance. "But it was too soon. It's _my_ face, and it's like they wanted to own it, to decide what it ought to mean to me. And then... there was the other stuff. The... well. It was close to the full moon and I punched someone I shouldn't have punched." She laughed. "It felt good. Too good. I knew I needed a change of scenery, then."

He could empathise all too well with that particular reaction. He wasn't about to share that, though, and he was mystified by how readily she was entrusting him with all of this. But maybe everyone in her circle already knew. She seemed to assume he'd heard a bit and to accept it. He had no idea how someone could be that open with themselves and survive in the world. Distractedly, he drew his wand and levitated the bike just an inch above the ground which was getting steeper as they approached the crest of the hill, while he processed what she'd just said. "So you came here to hide," he commented eventually.

"Not hide," she shot back with an immediate frown. "Just... regroup, I suppose. The scars, they're just scars, here. People look at them, but no one really cares what they mean. So _I_ don't have to care so much, either. Usually."

Draco nodded. He glanced at his forearm, the Dark Mark hidden under a perfectly cast glamour, and doubted he'd ever have the luxury of just leaving it unhidden. But the relief of not needing to resonated more sharply than he would have expected, and he firmly steered his thoughts away from the idea. "Who did you punch?"

Her grin held mischievous anticipation of his reaction. "Old McGee herself." 

He almost swallowed his tongue. "McGonagall? Tell me, Brown, why are you not a dead girl?"

Brown laughed and raised one arm to wipe her damp forehead. A tendril of her hair clung to the side of her face. Her cropped yellow t-shirt was snug and her breasts gave a soft little jiggle with each step she took, making it hard to keep his thoughts entirely pure. "She was nice about it, believe it or not."

"Yes," he said, considering. "I don't believe that."

"She was! She was really bloody nice! At first, of course, she was just in pain and concerned with stopping the blood from her broken nose."

"You _broke_ McGonagall's nose."

"She was asking for it," Brown said defensively.

"That wasn't necessarily a criticism." Draco carefully flexed the knuckles of his right hand. They still ached a bit. 

She grinned, dipped her chin and shrugged. "She told me I was 'lucky to be alive'." Brown repeated the words in a brisk, officious Scottish accent, as ruthlessly dead-on as she'd captured his own unfortunate greeting in the restaurant last night, and it made Draco chuckle even as he shook his head. "It was on the anniversary of the Battle and she found me crying and meant to buck me up, and I'm not denying she was right... I bloody well _know_ that I was lucky to survive, don't I! But there's the implication that I'm such a fucking silly, shallow thing. That I wouldn't be able to figure that out for myself, just weeping over my broken face. So I broke hers," she stated with grim satisfaction. "So she could suck on the feeling for at least a moment. It may not be the worst thing in the world, but it's not a walk in the park, either."

"And then she had you thrown out of school and you fled to Greece?"

"God, no. She invited me into her private parlour, well, after she'd been up to the hospital wing, and served me tea and shortbread and apologised for her patronising remark. That's what she called it. Of course, I apologised, then, too. Fair is fair. We chatted, and she suggested that a change of scenery might be helpful for someone who was grappling with other changes. We parted on less strained terms than we'd been in seven years, probably." She laughed again. "School was soon out anyway, so my mum asked Uncle Matthew, and he was glad for an extra hand over the summer." Her teeth sank into her bottom lip, then. "But... it's hard to say exactly when summer ends, on Crete. So here I am, still. In Greece pushing a Muggle bike up a hill with Draco Malfoy. Life is full of surprises, no?"

"I can't deny some astonishment, lately."

She gave him a shrewd look. "I reckon you came here to..... regroup, too."

"The honeymoon Portkey was bought and paid for. Shame to let it go to waste." 

"Oh... So this is where you were supposed to—?" She bit her lip, her eyes wide with consternation. "A honeymoon alone seems very sad!"

He frowned. 'Sad' wasn't a word he ever wanted to hear describing himself. Of course, Brown could hardly know that he was far more torn up by the betrayal of his best friend than that of his fiancée. Or that both seemed to currently pale compared with the tenaciousness of that bloody ghost. "I changed the destination from a wizarding guest house in Chania to a Muggle hotel in Rethymnon to throw the damn _Prophet_ off my scent. And I'm not alone, am I?" he said charmingly. "I've been kidnapped by a hot wench with possibly nefarious intentions."

Her cheeks flushed a rather appealing shade of pink, careful delight opening up in her face. "Damn right, you have. Scared yet?"

"Should I be?" he asked, and although the charm had been somewhat calculated, the smile he discovered on his lips was not.

"Unless you mean to insult me by implying that I'm harmless—"

He held up his hands. "You broke McGonagall's nose. I'm implying no such thing."

"Smart man." She laughed, and gave a whoop of triumph as they finally crested the hill. "We're saved, Malfoy. Petrol station, ahoy!"

***

Once the bike was re-fuelled, Brown navigated them through a labyrinth of narrow roads criss-crossing a gently sloping valley, amongst red-roofed white houses, holiday homes for rent and neatly lined olive groves. Draco refused to put the stupid helmet back on and enjoyed the rush of air lifting his sweat-damp hair away from his face as they sped down the lanes, catching glimpses of a glimmering promise of blue. 

The lake revealed itself in a dark glitter limned with aquamarine at the shallows, nestled between the slope of the valley and the low mountains on the far side that were dotted with dark green shrubs. The sandy beach was enlivened by colourful parasols and deck chairs, and there were small pedal craft for rent; there was half a dozen of them out on the placid surface. White ducks swam on the lake and waddled on the beach, some of them trailed by a row of ducklings.

Brown counted up Muggle money and disappeared into a taverna to pay for the use of sun beds and a parasol. She led the way while Draco rolled the bike down onto the beach and to the furthest parasol available, a little space away from the other ones that were occupied. He flung his jacket down on a sun bed and toed off his shoes. The place wasn't like the beaches along the ocean where tourists lay packed like sardines. It wasn't so crowded here, and most of the people here seemed to be locals, families with small kids, and elderly couples. 

Brown pulled up a lunch basket from the storage box affixed to the back of the bike. "Aunt Eleni packed lunch. There's enough for six people, probably." She pulled out a bottle, and made a mournful little moue. "And lemonade. I asked for wine, but she didn't want me drinking and driving. Boo."

"As your passenger, I'm inclined to agree with your aunt." Draco stood uselessly by and looked around. "So this is your surprise." It honestly surprised mostly by virtue of being entirely unsurprising, for a surprise. Greece was all about the beaches, wasn't it? "What is this place?" 

"Lake Kournas. It's the only freshwater lake in Crete. I've never been here, but I've wanted to come. Uncle Matthew said it was lovely. And it's pretty quiet this time of year." She stood up straight and squinted out over the lake with her hand shading her eyes, and then glanced at him. "It is lovely, no?"

It was; it was postcard pretty, in a bucolic, pedestrian, family friendly way that ought to have grated on his last nerve. But Draco, who'd felt something shamefully akin to intimidation at the thought of strolling onto an over-crowded Muggle beach where he didn't know the rules, felt his shoulders relax. If this was how the day was going to be, it was fine by him. He had company — unexpected, yet reassuringly alive and not disagreeable company — and she'd brought lunch, made by her aunt who was an accomplished chef. And the simple, undeniable truth was of course that he was free to Apparate back to Rethymnon any moment he chose... and here he was. 

"Yeah," he agreed, because she seemed to be waiting anxiously for his reply. "It's not bad at all. How the hell did you know the way, anyway, if you've never been here?" It had all been a maze of confusingly similar roads and fields to Draco.

"I owled my dad and he told me how to cast a navigating charm on the Vespa."

"Vespa?"

She gave the bike an affectionate pat. "That's what it's called. A Vespa, a scooter. A small motorbike. It belongs to my Uncle Manouil, but he's got a car and he's been letting me use it as much as I want."

"This thing belongs to someone male?" Draco asked, his eyebrows climbing as he looked at it again and noticed that the shiny pink surface had a pattern of sky blue flowering vines on the front shield. "He must be a very brave man." And, he reflected silently, a very gay man. Which she had pretty much confirmed, earlier.

Brown laughed. "I prettied it up with a charm or two. It was dark maroon, before." She shuddered. "Isn't that the most depressing colour in the world? Here—" She lifted the seat and drew out a huge towel and a blanket. The bike must have been magically altered in more than surface ways. There wouldn't have been room otherwise. "I only brought one towel. But we can share."

"No problem. I won't be swimming." He held out his arms, glad to have a valid excuse, showing her his attire as though she hadn't had a chance to see it before. "I didn't exactly come equipped for a beach day."

"I'll transfigure your trousers," she said cheerfully. 

"That won't be necessary." He wasn't undressing, not this unprepared. No way.

She glanced around them to make sure they were unobserved, and discreetly drew out her wand from her jacket. "What colour do you prefer? Blue? Green? Peach?"

"Not peach— _hey_!" His trousers shrank upwards where he stood, shortened to just above his knees and changing colour to a bright blue-green. Draco glared at her, appalled. "This is... _was_ a Twilfitt and Tattings bespoke suit, you mad bint! And have you never heard of the Statute of Secrecy? And... I didn't say yes!"

"'Not peach' implies that you were amenable to some other colour, doesn't it?" She tilted her head indecisively, frowned and muted the colour slightly. 

"You are extremely devious for a Gryffindor," he said coolly. He glanced down. He could change them back, he supposed, but he wasn't that deft at altering clothes. He'd always had more than enough garments for any possible purpose. For that matter, he had two other linen suits in his wardrobe back at the hotel.

"Do you want to see me in a bikini?"

His head whipped up. "What?"

"Because turnaround is fair play," she said sweetly.

He stared as she stripped off her shorts and revealed tiny bikini bottoms that tied with string in the sides and hugged a round, pert behind; accentuated the plump little 'v' of her mound framed by those lush, tanned thighs he'd admired on the bike. His throat went a little dry. Of course he wanted to see her in a bikini. He wouldn't mind seeing her out of a bikini, if he were scrupulously honest.

"Now tops," she said gravely, her gaze frank and challenging. He still hesitated, and she pressed her lips together in sudden decision and crossed her arms to grip at the edge of her t-shirt, sliding it up over her head in one smooth motion. Draco caught his breath, then swallowed hard.

A Muggle would look and think... God knew what; that some large dog had savaged her? He, who'd had Greyback regularly prowling around his home for a year and in his nightmares long after that, knew better. Claw marks; it was more apparent here than on the face. A bit redder, raised more against her smooth skin; one cruel swipe, the monster's long, pointed nails raking over her jaw and falling sharply down to her collarbone before slashing down to her breast...

...Which, by the way, was very pretty. As was the other one. A pale-blue triangle of fabric clung to each one. The immediate sick drop of his stomach receded for something more pleasurable, far more self-serving. She was slender, but she had lovely curves, round breasts and generously flared hips and a small waist, a pleasing softness over her belly where her navel dipped in. Her pastel blue bikini showed off a glowing tan.

The guarded look in her eyes fell away for a sly smile. "I suppose I shouldn't go topless, or what do you think? Seems this place is a bit more conservative than the beaches on the coast." She pensively fingered the stretchy material of her bikini top and gave it a little tug that teased with a glimpse of paler skin. "On the other hand, might be fun to shake things up a bit, huh?"

The word 'topless' and that flash of pale skin was all Draco registered for a moment. She was giggling at his slack-jawed reaction, too, the little vixen, and held his gaze brazenly as she reached with her hands for the string tying her top in the back. He growled and stepped up to reach for her wrists and bring them firmly to her front, their foreheads almost touching for a moment as he caught his breath. "Jesus. No, I don't think you should go topless. Unless you want me to spend the entire day lying on my belly, that is." That might still be a necessity; in fact it wouldn't be a bad idea to lie down on his stomach _right now_. He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to talk his cock down. He hadn't had as much experience with practically naked girls as he generally liked to pretend to, and he was pathetically easy prey for her mischief. And standing this close to her, her slender wrists caught in his hands, her sweet giggle taunting him and the scent of perfume and warm skin filling his senses, wasn't helping his predicament at all.

He'd cast a glamour on the Mark this morning; he always did if there were any chance he might need to roll up his sleeves, but he hadn't thought to cover the scars on his chest and abdomen, Potter's wand-work from what seemed an eternity ago. If _she_ had the nerve... But in the end, he dismissed the thought.

"Why did you want me along today?" he asked roughly, instead. "We're not even remotely friends, so why are you being so bloody—"

"Friendly?" she supplied, and shook her head, a quick flash of impatience in her eyes. "Don't be such a git, Malfoy. People who aren't remotely friends can change that, can't they? I get a bit lonely, I reckon. It's nice to talk to someone from home. I saw you at the bus stop and you looked kind of lost. And of course I'm curious about you," she added, quite unabashed; "I get the _Prophet_ here, you know!"

He took a few moments to process that. Finally, he said sternly, "For your information, Brown, I knew precisely where I was. And I prefer not to talk about—"

"Sure," she said easily. "Basically, a road trip and a day at the beach are more fun with company, than without. Not everything needs to be so bloody complicated." She bit her lip, her gaze lowering and drifting sideways, and shrugged. "Although... I'm always a bit antsy, the week before the full moon. That might have influenced my decision."

"Antsy?"

"Well... horny," she clarified, peeking up at him from under her lashes, and Draco let her wrists go as if burnt and was suddenly trying to catch his breath again. Only then did he notice the laughter in her eyes. A second later, she was cackling out loud at the look on his face.

Draco narrowed his eyes. "Funny girl. That lake had better be freezing." 

"Or else you'll Crucio it, right?" Her laughter trailed after him as he ran into the water.

And ran. And ran. Finally he stopped, with the lake still only reaching to his knees. Feeling quite foolish, he glanced back over his shoulder and saw her doubled over and laughing. Practically rolling around on the sand with hilarity at his expense. A noise slipped past his lips that he refused to acknowledge as a chortle.

"You knew about this, didn't you?" he called back to her accusingly.

She waded after him, still hiccupping laughter. "You didn't give me time to tell you... before you... ran hell for leather to cool down your excitable bits—"

"Yes, about that—" To make his indignity complete, he was interrupted by a duck mama with a trail of ducklings that came swimming past him, all of them quacking with ear-splitting gusto, and he let out a martyred sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers. "Never mind; I think the ducks helped."

"Good. We don't want to shock the ducks."

"Indeed. Is it possible to swim in this place at all?" 

"Sure, we just need to go further out. Only not as far out as the eels and the water snakes."

He dropped his hand and just stared at her. "Oh god, you _must_ be joking."

"Not unless Uncle Matthew was pulling my leg. Anyway, you're a Slytherin, you love snakes!"

"Not anymore," he said vehemently, before he could stop the instinctive recoil.

"Oh—" Her lips parted for a moment, but she shook her head firmly, as if physically rejecting the intrusion of the image. "Come on, we won't go that far out. As long as we can see the bottom, we're fine." She grinned and grabbed his hand firmly, and he tightened his fingers around hers, blindsided into compliance, starting to run again when she did, grumbling first and then grinning in spite of himself as she dragged him along and made as big a splash as she could. The water got colder the further out they came, enough that it would have made intervention by ducks superfluous, but she was giggling and squealing like a little girl and making him run faster. When they finally were waist deep in the water, she threw herself at him, knocked him off balance and thoroughly dunked him, and he came up sputtering and vengeful and immediately returned the favour, typically ill-bred Gryffindor behaviour and his parents would have been appalled to see him indulge her childish antics and make such a common spectacle of himself. 

He couldn't even remember the last time he'd laughed like that.

***

After the swim, they cast drying charms and sat in the shade of the parasol and shared lunch, which probably _was_ enough for six people, but Lavender and Draco managed to make quite a dent in it, regardless. Lavender ate with gusto, taking care of the roast beef that Eleni made so red for her that it didn't appeal much to anyone else's tastes, and she was pleased to see Draco really tuck in as well, devouring cold chicken thighs that tasted of olive oil, rosemary and sea salt, feta-stuffed olives and tzatziki and garlic bread spread with baba ganouch, swigging it all down with cool home-made lemonade from Matthew's farm up in the hills above Rethymnon. She even pressed him to try a piece of Eleni's baklava and stared him down until he rolled his eyes and smirked and admitted that he liked it.

Afterwards they baked in the sun. She took out her stoppered jar of sun potion and carefully slid the oil over legs and arms, chest and belly, aware of his sidelong gaze lingering and sliding over the wet sheen it left on her skin. Draco simply cast a strong sun-protective charm on himself, leaned back and closed his eyes. He was so pale; he'd probably burn in fifteen minutes without it. She wondered what he was thinking about this unexpected venture, about his runaway bride and his treacherous best friend, and about herself, for that matter. She tried to read the romance novel she'd brought along, unable to focus on it entirely. Eventually she turned over on her stomach, cast a simple charm on her back and legs — too unfamiliar with him, after all, to quite decide whether she wanted to ask him to help her with the potion — and handed him the novel. 

"I need a nap. Was up early helping out with breakfast," she explained drowsily. She grinned at the way he studied the racy novel cover. "The best bits are about two-thirds of the way in. I think you'll find that it falls open just about there."

He tried it, and raised an eyebrow as a mild flush crept over his cheekbones. There was a reason it was so well-read. It was the dirtiest romance novel she owned. "Right. Your priorities are flawless, but your literary taste is abysmal, Brown."

"Better than the other way around, isn't it? Wake me up in half an hour. We're doing the pedal craft next!"

His cast his gaze heavenward a moment, as if beseeching Apollo himself for patience. "Good grief! That is an absolute no." 

She giggled, because she'd expected as much. Despite the disgusted look, he'd sounded fairly amused, and that was progress, surely? Towards what, she didn't know, and didn't worry about. She'd had this outing planned for a week, and when Uncle Matthew had mentioned this morning that the wizarding guest had wanted directions for the bus station, she'd just slightly adjusted her plans. It hadn't been chance that she'd come upon Draco at the bus station, but it had been out of her hands that he'd missed his bus, and as she dozed off in the sun she was wondering for the first time in a long while what the stars might tell her about the situation.

After her nap, she tried to wheedle him onto the pedal craft, but he proved implacable on that point, so they had coffees and ice cream in the taverna instead. She sensed him getting preoccupied and restless. The sun was starting to sink toward the horizon, gilding the landscape, and Lavender suggested they head back for the hotel.

"If you want to Apparate back, that's fine," she assured him. "I don't mind. I've got plenty of fuel and I'll be home in less than an hour."

He nodded, raking his fingers back through his pale hair in a distracted motion. "I've got a ton of things I ought to be sorting out," he said, and then met her gaze. "That's not to say... I didn't mind catching my breath after... the debacle this week."

That was one way of putting it. Lavender instinctively backed down, because he sounded like he was carefully putting back in place a barrier that she'd sensed partially dismantled over the day. That was a bit disappointing, but she let it go and just winked at him. "My pleasure, Malfoy." 

He took his jacket, shoes and wand and walked off behind the taverna to Apparate away discreetly. Lavender packed the rest, her effort slowed down by a host of buzzing thoughts, then loaded the bike, rolled it up on the road and set off. The speed and the countryside racing by blew all the confusion and distraction straight out of her mind. It was what she loved about it. Maybe she'd make a better effort with her old broomstick, when she was back home again. If she could get used to the height, it had to be amazing. She could even paint it pink! She grinned and swung down on the shorter route straight onto the coastal highway, the ocean wide and blue beside her and the sun and the wind at her back. 

***

He glanced around anxiously the moment he Apparated into his room, then breathed out in relief. Thank heaven for small mercies. He'd steeled himself for spectral reproach, seeing as he hadn't made it to Knossos at her suggestion. Draco walked onto the balcony and tipped the sand out of his shoes, unhappily aware of the missive from his parents that lay unopened on the table, and the glaring eyes of their owl who still waited to carry his reply back.

There was another letter, though, slipped into a crack in the window pane. Seeing the writing on the envelope, Draco let out a curse of surprise. It had been owled to Draco Malfoy, Crete, and it was in Theo's even, fluid hand.

He left his parents' letter where it was, and opened Theo's with shaking hands. 

_Draco-_

_Got your address from Pansy. I can't begin to say how wretched I feel about the way I have handled all of this. For what it may be worth, I did try for another solution, but in the end, I acted out of desperation. It was awful timing, as I'm sure you would agree. Tracey and I are in Crete. I hope you will give me a chance to explain. I'll wait at the Café Eureka in Chania tomorrow at noon._

_Yours,_

_Theo_

Draco read the letter over twice. The strange fact was that he felt absolutely nothing. He didn't even feel numb. This was all just simply too crazy, and for once he didn't think anyone could blame the mess on him. Certainly, he could have resisted this marriage that was so obviously not for love ("arranged marriages simply work better; love and affection grow in time," said his mother, who'd been madly in love with his father when they'd married). So could Tracey, for that matter, but he imagined the pressure to comply had been as lovingly relentless on her, as on him. The truth was that he didn't feel a thing for the loss of her, other than relief that he didn't need to relate to her, and worry that somehow the trap would smack shut on them again. As for Theo...

He swallowed hard and tossed the letter aside. He couldn't deal with it right now. He sank down on the edge of the bed and looked at his absurdly turquoise linen shorts. He wiggled his toes to rid them of some surplus sand, but it was an oddly nice feeling, and he didn't reach for his wand to vanish it. He realised that he was smiling, thinking of Brown and her flirty teasing with her bikini straps, that madcap dash hand in hand out into the lake. What a surprise she was, a disconcerting jumble of lanky limbs and womanly curves, unguarded smiles and evaluating gazes. She was defiantly vulnerable, bold as brass and she took no shit from him. Draco couldn't make head nor tails of her. He'd tolerated her company more than well; there was no point denying it. All right, the word 'adorable' was popping up in his mind and he promptly swatted it out because it didn't seem like a word he ought to be thinking about anyone or anything in this world. But what the hell was he supposed to do with her? Prior to last evening's encounter, they'd barely exchanged two words with one another, had never even had an interaction where they weren't part of two opposing, hostile groups. Yet when she looked at him, there was more honest curiosity in her eyes than he'd ever elicited in his fiancée.

This day had been so strangely... normal, Muggle factors aside. Yet normal was supposed to be the things that described your everyday life, and his life hadn't had any such thing in longer than he could think. Some time back in his Fifth year, perhaps. Patrolling the Hogwarts corridors in Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad, feeling right on top of the world. He'd imagined himself to be hot shit, then, and hadn't suspected that the mill wheels were already put in motion to crush him like a bug between them. 

He'd been so fucking wrong. How was it even possible to have been so wrong? His parents had...

In frustration, he propelled himself up from the bed, studiously avoiding looking at the letter on the table as he strode past it, even though Fergus glared at him through the window and hooted accusingly. He would have a shower, then go and have dinner and a few drinks in the restaurant. If Brown was there, he'd ask her to recommend dessert; he even had plausible cover now to beg off the baklava, having already forced down a piece at their picnic. Well, that imperious look of anticipation on his behalf had somehow made him want to convince her that he enjoyed it, and that might backfire, he supposed.

He opened the bathroom door and stopped dead in his tracks.

"I can see you got a bit of sun today," she said with a kind smile.

His heart was thumping wildly, his hand clutching at his chest as if he were some septuagenarian on the brink of a heart attack. Finally, he got out, "I didn't go to Knossos."

"It was just a suggestion, dear. And there's always tomorrow, if you're interested. At least until you're dead," she said wryly. "Although, I can attest that as a ghost, time still runs on after a fashion."

Draco stared at her. She was mostly unmarked; Crucio worked that way. A smudge of blood in the corner of her mouth; that had been Macnair, who'd brought her in. Her hair was still rather messy and wild after... He closed his eyes tightly a moment. 

"If I could prevail upon you to vacate my bathroom for the next fifteen minutes or so?" Sarcasm snapped in his voice; he couldn't help it, he reacted to stress that way. "I intended to take a shower."

"Of course. I'd never dream of intruding on your privacy that way." She drifted through him, a damp, icy cloud, and he shuddered and turned. She actually looked surprised. "I'm sorry; I remember it was rather unpleasant to be on the living end of that. I'll let you have your shower. Will you be meeting Miss Brown tonight?"

He sighed. "Did you spy on me?"

"I told you; I wouldn't do that, Draco. I have some discretion in the matter and I try as much as I can to... well, exist by the same standards as a ghost as I did as a living person." She smiled, and but for that trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth, she looked positively joyful. "I've loved seeing her again. She's grown up well, don't you think? Bit of a cheeky monkey, but all heart. I really enjoyed having her in Muggle Studies."

As she drifted toward the window, she pointed to the table. "By the way, you've forgotten to read the letter from your parents."

***

_Greek mini-glossary:  
Kalispéra - Good evening  
Kyrie - Polite form of address to a man  
Kali bradi - Good night  
Kaliméra - Good morning_


	2. Chapter 2

Lavender sat up in bed with the echo of a shout ringing in her ears. She rubbed her eyes; had she dreamed it? In a hotel that catered to Muggles and Squibs with no resort to privacy charms, it wasn't the first time she'd woken up from noises she'd rather not have been privy to. But this had given off a different feeling, and she sat irresolute in her bed for a moment, blinking into the dark, when the sounds of objects crashing into walls started reverberating through the house. Oh, dear. She stumbled out of bed, into her slippers, flung on her dressing gown and tucked her wand into the sleeve. A glance at the clock up on the wall told her it was just past four o'clock. She followed the noise and was on her way up the stairs to the second floor when she ran into Uncle Matthew on his way down, fully dressed; he had reception duty this night. 

"Oh, good, I was coming for you." He turned, following her up. 

"Whassup," Lavender said blearily. 

"Seems our wizard guest is having a bad night. He won't open the door to me," Matthew said, wincing as another loud crash and a shouted curse rang through the house. "He can easily repair all of that, right?"

"Probably. The electric stuff is trickier. Got my wand with me, I'll see what I can do."

He stopped her for a moment in front of the door to Draco's room, his hand firm around her arm. Other guests were peeking out their doors and he waved reassuringly at them. "I apologise for the disturbance. Please, return to your beds; we're taking care of it. Is it safe, though?" he asked her, lowering his voice. "I don't want you to talk to him otherwise, but it seemed you were getting on all right..." He sighed. "I read the _Prophet_ , too, by the way. It's the Malfoy kid, right?"

She smirked. "What, James Bond is a fake name?"

"Uppity, Lavender. You didn't know who James Bond was until I took you to the movies this summer," he chided her mildly. "Anyway, I can't very well call Muggle police on a wizard. I'm at a loose end."

"No worries," Lavender said. "He's not going to hurt anyone. I think he's just under a giant heap of stress." She knocked on the door. "Oi! Malfoy!" she called, close to the door.

There was a pause in the crashing, shattering, booming noises. Then she heard Draco's voice, breathless and belligerent, on the other side of the door. "What do you want?"

She rolled her eyes and glanced up with a reassuring grin at uncle Matthew, who was hovering right behind her, a frown of concern on his brow. "What do you _think_ I want, genius?" she called back. 

"Piss off, Brown!"

"Not a chance. I've got a key and my wand and I'm getting in there some way or other. I'll call the local Auror office if I have to! You may as well open the door now!"

A fist banged furiously on the door on the other side, and she jumped back a fraction. In the next moment, the door yanked open a crack. 

His face was drawn and pale, eyes wild, his pale blonde hair hanging into his eyes, and he was just easing a t-shirt down over his midriff. "Go. The. Fuck. Away," he snarled. 

"Mr Bond," said Uncle Matthew firmly, "I must remind you of our hotel's rules—"

"I've got this," said Lavender, giving him a confident thumbs up, and squeezed under Draco's arm and into the room.

She leaned against the door, clicking it shut, and took stock of the damage. He'd not touched the night lamp or the one in the ceiling, and they weren't turned on; the room was bright with a Lumos charm as might be expected. But practically everything else that could be readily lifted and hurled across the room had been so. He seemed to even have made an effort with the massive bed, only shifting it askew a few inches. 

"Good job," she murmured.

He stared at her, dishevelled and baleful in his rumpled dark t-shirt and boxers, and looking a bit sheepish at that. He had his wand in one hand, a bottle of wine clutched firmly by the neck in his other. "I was going to repair it."

"I understand that, and I think my Uncle Matthew understands that, but for our guests, that's not so obvious."

He waved his wand and put up a privacy ward, then grabbed the last picture still hanging on the wall, tore it off its peg and hurled it across the room. 

"Please, don't damage any electric items. They're harder to put right with charms." Lavender sank down on the floor, her back against the door, sliding her fuzzy slippers off and frowning at the shade of last night's nail polish. The red seemed a bit garish in the cool light and she waved her wand and changed it to a rosy pink to better match the turquoise slippers and robe. "What's going on, Draco?"

Draco looked around wildly. He seemed to have run out of obvious things to throw. He kicked a pillow that lay in the middle of the floor so viciously that he almost lost balance, then started punching the air. "I'm sick of my parents plotting out my future! I'm sick of being embarrassed to show my face out in the streets! I'm sick of living in a house where everywhere and everything reminds me of the Dark fucking Lord! I'm sick of nightmares! Sick of monsters! Sick of ghosts! I'm sick of feeling guilty! I'm sick of being humiliated! I'm sick of fucking thinking about it all the fucking time!"

"I understand that," Lavender said quietly.

"No, you don't! You're a fucking war hero! You can't possibly understand a fucking thing!"

"If you say so."

"I do," he yelled, his fair skin flushed a blotchy red with rage. "I do say so!"

"All right," she said, and held his gaze steadily. "Are you done, now?"

He stared at her, set the bottle down with care on the small coffee table, and flopped down beside her on the floor. He was breathing hard, and he scrubbed the heels of his shaking hands down over his face and then dropped his forehead to his knees.

"Apologies for...," he said after a moment, waving an arm in a gesture encompassing the room, and she reached out a hand and tentatively patted the side of his knee.

"Mmhm. That was impressive. Not quite as crazy as my worst rants to Parvati and my mum last year, but pretty close." 

He sighed heavily. "And you know what?" he asked as if continuing a train of thought. "I'm all for Theo being happy. He's one of my best friends. I have nothing against Tracey being happy, either, although I don't know her well. But why on earth did they have to do things in a way that was so monumentally mortifying for me?"

"Malfoy monumentally mortified," Lavender mused. "Sounds like a _Daily Prophet_ headline." 

He gave a dull laugh. The anger seemed to have burned itself out, and he sounded spent and hopeless. "Yeah. They'll probably run it tomorrow."

She'd drawn her knees up to her chin, and rested her cheek there, casting him a sidelong look. "I missed you in the restaurant tonight. Did you go someplace else?"

He nodded at the bottle. "To the wine merchant up the road."

The bottle was still half-full, she noted, just plain red wine. If that was all he'd had, it couldn't be just alcohol that had fuelled this meltdown. 

"Want to talk about it?"

"It's nothing."

"Sounded like a big kind of something to me."

He swallowed, audibly. "That fucking ghost popped in for another visit. Then I opened the letter from my parents, who are working on getting another possible bride lined up in case the current one can't be strong-armed back to the altar. Fired off a two-word reply to that since I couldn't give them a two-finger salute. Then I bought wine and drank till I fell asleep. Then I woke up from a dream of that... that hideous..." He took a ragged breath. "I'm... so... fucking..."

"Sick," she supplied quietly.

"... of...of..."

"All of it?"

"Yes. Yes."

They fell silent for a minute. Lavender was trying to process all the things he had said into a somewhat cohesive picture before saying anything more. That wasn't easy, but it sounded like rather a lot for one person to be trying to balance on his shoulders; it sounded dark and sad and foul, and she felt a surge of genuine, stomach-lurching sympathy for this prickly, arrogant, difficult boy she'd always viewed as a privileged (if rather fit) bastard. He was just nineteen, too. Nothing about this seemed fair.

"There aren't any ghosts haunting this house that I'm aware of," she ventured at last. "So I assume it's one haunting you?"

He nodded, looking away, out the dark window. His fine profile was set, his mouth turned down in a grim line.

"Who?"

"Someone... who died."

"I understand that," Lavender said patiently.

" _I_ didn't kill her, if that's what you think."

But someone had, and he looked absolutely wretched about it. Lavender felt a chill crawl up her spine. "Who? What happened?" she asked softly.

She could see his jaw clenching and unclenching, his Adam's apple bob up and down. "You don't want to hear it."

"Try me."

"I can't, damn it! It's not just me, and..." With a noise that sounded like it must hurt in his throat, he dropped his face into his hands. When he finally looked at her again, his gaze was grey ice, but his eyes looked wet. "You don't want to hear this. No one would want to hear this."

"All right," Lavender said shakily, thinking back to what he'd been shouting about and trying a different tack. "I have nightmares, too, sometimes, of Greyback coming at me again. I check under the bed, some nights," she admitted, and he nodded seriously, not taking it like a joke as Seamus had done, when she'd said it. She wiggled her toes thoughtfully, looking at her new pedicure. "So... why are your parents trying to plot your future, huh?"

He shrugged. "Because that's what parents do," he muttered, sounding exhausted.

That wasn't her experience, but of course she was from a cheerful line of half-bloods, Muggle-borns and mutts living in a semi-detached in Bristol. "So was it an arranged marriage?" He hadn't sounded exactly heart-broken over that fiancée of his; so much for that theory. She took his silence as a yes, and shook her head. "I can't understand how that medieval practice is still going on! It's.... well, inhumane!"

"Not at all," he said defensively. "It comes down to managing large estates, to leverage, cementing loyalties, and mutual benefit. Tracey and I were both amenable."

Or so he'd thought. Lavender didn't say that aloud, but she wrinkled her nose at his explanation. What a thoroughly depressing list of unromantic words. And he didn't really seem to agree with himself, did he? She Accioed the wine bottle, took a swig and offered it to him, tucking her feet under her. "It was your parents who suggested the match, then."

"Yeah. We need to give our name a spit-shining after the wreck my father has made of it," he said bitterly. "The rest of pureblood Britain isn't exactly lining up to hitch their wagon to the Malfoy train at the moment, but we still have money after paying our way out of Azkaban, and Tracey's family are in desperate straits. The Dark Lord squeezed them dry during the war for the privilege of staying above the fray. She was an offer I couldn't refuse. I was an offer she couldn't refuse." He lay his head back against the door and seemed to study the ceiling morosely. "Until she did, obviously. Look, am I... repulsive or something?"

"Er," said Lavender, taken aback, almost laughing at the puzzled vanity in his tone. "No! Well, to be honest I wouldn't have touched you with a barge-pole in school, no matter how fit you were, but things are different now." She felt her face go a little warm with the way that had come out. 

He actually gave a real laugh at that, and shot her a sharp look. "I was a bit of a prat, wasn't I?"

She cackled, there was no helping it. "Understatement of the year. And I'm not sure the past tense is required here, Malfoy," she said, poking her tongue out at him, still feeling rather sheepish about her inadvertent admission. "But you were a worse prat in school, to be sure. My point is that it wasn't necessarily personal that she wanted out of it. You don't sound excited about her, either, although she's a very pretty girl. It just seems like a really shitty trap for you both." 

But Draco didn't seem to be thinking of his errant fiancée right then. His gaze hadn't left hers, and the corners of his mouth turned up a little, more into a question than a smile, as he raised his hand and cupped her jaw. Her heart jumped into her throat. His hand was so much warmer and more careful than she was prepared for. Had she thought he had ice water in his veins? No, not after feeling his arms clasped warm and strong around her waist on that scooter ride the day before. But this was different; it had no practical purpose, no explanation other than...

Her breath rushed out of her and then caught on a gasp when he leaned in and kissed her. His lips were chapped and yet softer than they looked. They lingered on hers for a few, endless seconds before he started to draw back. Without thinking — _deciding_ not to think — Lavender stopped his retreat with her hands sliding into his hair and pressed her lips to his again. It was all strangely chaste, dry lips, staccato breaths, hammering hearts — well, hers anyway. He'd taken her utterly by surprise, and yet she knew she'd imagined the moment without entirely admitting it to herself.

His thumb traced in soft circles over her jaw, gently exploring where the scar tissue was still over-sensitive and numb and strange. Her nape prickled, her eyes snapped open, and Draco's opened with a start. He looked braced, as if expecting her to lash out teeth and claws at him. Slowly, she relaxed.

"It just feels a bit weird, yet." Her voice came out husky, and his gaze rested on her lips as she spoke, in a way that made lust turn over, low in her stomach. "The skin, nerve endings, I mean. It doesn't hurt, but... you know?"

"I do." It was odd, how he said it. He was looking at her, irresolute, and then reached down in an abrupt, determined motion and wrangled the t-shirt over his head. His eyes narrowed as he took in her reaction.

His torso was strong, still boyishly slender, and she took it all in before her attention snagged on his chest like a sleeve caught on thorns. Brought up short, she reached out and trailed her fingers down over his chest and sternum, over all the fine slashing lines. They were silvery-pink, standing out against his pale skin, but more faded than her own. Her touch seemed to chase goosebumps in a ripple over his skin as he shuddered and his stomach sucked in. She looked up, distracted, and her lips quirked up to a lop-sided, pensive smile. 

"You and I look like we've been in the war, don't we, Malfoy?"

He blinked, an uncertain huff of laughter escaping his lips. "I... didn't get these in the war, as such."

Lavender crawled over to face him, and straddled his thighs. "You know, my brother cut his chin because he lost his balance when he was rocking on his chair, yet when he's chatting up girls, he always implies he got the scar in a duel with a Death Eater."

His lips were quirking up but then his gaze skittered sideways at the last word... _Oh._ Of course. Stumbling-stones lay everywhere, it seemed. She glanced down at his unmarked lower arms, and he put them around her as if to forbid any question, pulling her close in the motion and answering gruffly all the same. "Sometimes I really can't stand the sight of it, so..."

"I know. I _do_." She kissed him, insistent and gentle, demanding his full attention. He parted his lips with a sigh, and she wriggled out of the top half of her dressing gown as they kissed, tongues darting out and slowly exploring, causing a dizzy slipping and sliding in her stomach and making her press down on his thigh. She wore nothing but her knickers under the robe, and she smiled at his low groan, his hands splaying wide and curious over her back as he realised.

She broke the kiss and met his gaze, sitting in the pool of her turquoise velvet robe in the middle of the wrecked room, defiantly displaying her scars along with her breasts with the nipples tightening under his gaze. Desire flushed her skin in hot waves. Draco's lips had parted in intent concentration, and he slid one hand round to her stomach, a thumb brushing the padded-softness of it, then traced with his fingertips up between her breasts, cupping one in his palm, the pad of his thumb brushing back and forth over the raised, flushed peak. She bit her lip to mute the mewling noise rising from her throat, and he flashed her a smile, a quick, triumphant one that made him look nearly cruel for a moment, almost like the old, mean-spirited Malfoy. But that was merely an association from the past, because his eyes were anything but cold, and the cockiness seemed more of an afterthought. 

"D'you want to?" he asked seriously.

She gave him a smirk, a jaunty shrug of one shoulder. "We're young, we're messed-up, we're beautiful... we're two drunken Brits abroad."

Draco laughed, a genuine, warm sound, and she grinned. "I'm not that drunk," he confessed.

"Well, I've had just a sip. I don't have an excuse, either."

They looked at each other, the moment crackling with energy, and then they crashed together, lips hard and needy, hands eager, gasps and moans given free rein.

They stumbled to their feet, across the floor toward the bed. Lavender felt dizzy, clinging to his arms. "Careful," Draco warned, leading her round crashed shards of china and then just Apparated them the few steps' distance, falling onto the duvet with her, moving over her in the same moment. She felt his erection through his thin cotton boxers against her bare thigh. She fumbled with the belt of her robe; his hands came down to help and he peeled the velvet material away from her body.

"Fuck," he whispered, taking her in. There was a reverence in his voice, something halting in his hand tracing down her stomach and touching her hip, that made her think Draco perhaps wasn't so terribly experienced at this. Which was just as well, because neither was she, for that matter. Her attempts to lose her virginity with Seamus had been bafflingly difficult (when he'd got together with Dean, that had somewhat explained things) and her drunken tryst on the beach with a boy called Didier whom she'd met at a Chania disco had put the lie to the myth that all Frenchmen were sophisticated Casanovas. Neither had felt like she'd wished a first time would be. _This_ , though, felt promising, exhilarating, and she raised her hips to him in an undulating motion, parting her thighs, and sighed when he put a hand on her inner thigh, leaned down and ran his tongue over her breast.

Someone coughed.

They jumped apart at the sound. Lavender thought in panic of her uncle and was grabbing blindly for her robe; Draco was looking around furiously, and she followed his gaze to the bathroom door that stood open a crack. A silvery apparition was there, shielding its eyes politely. Draco's ghost, she realised with a shocked start. 

"Oh dear, I'm so _terribly_ sorry," a woman's voice said. "But Miss Brown's uncle is outside in the corridor and I think he's about to break in the door!"

The privacy charm. Crap! They hadn't heard him calling for her; he'd heard nothing from this side of the door, either. Which, _that_ was a bloody relief. Lavender searched wildly for the wand in the sleeve of her robe, and finally managed to lower the ward while Draco flopped on his back on the bed with a breathed oath. She picked her way with care over the littered floor to the door. "Uncle Matt?" she called softly.

"Lavender. Is everything all right?" 

"Yes! We've had a privacy ward up. So as not to disturb the guests," Lavender explained, blushing although that _had_ been the reason Draco had cast the charm in the first place. "Everything's fine, I promise. We're... tidying up." She crossed her fingers behind her bare bum, eliciting a snort from the bed. "I'll bring him along for breakfast later, if it's okay?"

"Please do, poppet," said Uncle Matthew through the door. "And... well, thanks for taking care of things." 

"My pleasure," said Lavender, and turned and leaned against the door, dropping her hot face into her hands and running her palms up and back through her hair. When she opened her eyes, the ghost was gone, and Draco was sitting up on the bed, looking toward the closed bathroom door with a defeated expression.

"That ghost of yours is pretty considerate," she offered up. It had also sounded... familiar. In a rather upending way.

"More than I can say for your uncle," he said. "I object to being described as 'things', by the way."

Their eyes met and held, and Draco's lips twitched on a not-quite-smile. He held up her robe. "Want this, _poppet_?"

It had been called off, then. While the intermezzo with Uncle Matthew had been a bucket of cold water, from the way Draco had eyed the bathroom she supposed that his ghost had put an even worse damper on things. Which she had to agree with, given the assumption that it was still hanging around in there. Given her own, stunned suspicion who it was. She slowly picked her way back to the bed, casting a few _Reparo_ s on the way to take care of shards and broken edges, and he rose from the bed and held up the robe for her, tucking her into it with quietly efficient motions, tying her belt afterwards, both of them avoiding each other's gaze, now. 

He put his t-shirt back on. She helped him tidy the room. It was quickly done, with two of them sharing the job. In the end, she sat down on the bed she'd just made, took a deep breath and said what was on her mind. 

"Draco... do you know anything about what happened to Professor Burbage?"

His jaw clenched. "What do you think?" Raising his wand, he cast a _Reparo_ on the torn piece of paper he held in his hand, and she watched a Knossos information leaflet reassemble itself in his hand, only to get crumpled as his fist tightened on it.

"I think... I think her ghost may be hiding out in your bathroom," she said quietly.

He let out a sigh, as if he'd been holding his breath for ages. "No shit. Lavender..."

It was the first time he'd said her name since that first night, she thought, and he said it in frustration, in defeat. She shook her head impatiently. "Don't 'Lavender' me, Malfoy! Look, I believe you, that you didn't kill her. She seemed to want to protect you, and if she were haunting her murderer I reckon she'd be more vindictive than that! But have you got any _clue_ how people have been looking for her? Of course everyone's thinking she must be dead, but Draco, she must have family who have no idea what happened to her!"

"They should be fucking glad they don't," he said, his voice hoarse and strange, and stalked over to the balcony door, flung it open and marched outside. She glimpsed him in the dark outside, his fair hair and skin catching the moonlight. He was clinging to the parapet as if trying to physically restrain himself from hurtling over it. Lavender felt her heart racing — with the awful implications of his words, with the irrational impulse to go out there and hug the tense, stooped figure of him, with the conflicting impulse to go out there and shake him till his teeth rattled and he told her the whole truth. She rose from the bed and went to open the bathroom door instead.

The bathroom was empty. Looking back into the room, she saw the silvery-blue apparition near the balcony door. It stood a little, respectfully apart from Draco's turned back.

Quietly, Lavender went over there. "Hello, Professor Burbage," she whispered.

The professor's ghost turned to her with a spectral version of that warm, enthusiastic smile Lavender remembered so well from Muggle Studies class. "Miss Brown. It's lovely to see you!"

"It's lovely to see you, too, Professor." Lavender's eyes stood full of tears, suddenly, and her voice wobbled. "I mean... I don't mean...I'd hoped..." Sure she'd known ghosts at Hogwarts, but it was the first time she met a ghost she'd known before it died. Professor Burbage had always been so fun, passionate and... well, alive! It just didn't suit her to be dead. To have died in such a terrible way.

Professor Burbage's mouth drew down to something between a sad grimace and a smile. "I know, child. Can't be helped. I'm getting used to it. And please, call me Charity; I'm hardly a Professor anymore, am I?" 

"Is there anything I can do for you, Prof... um, Charity?" Lavender whispered.

The ghost pointed to Draco's stubbornly turned back, put her arms around herself and mimed... a hug. A bloody hug! Lavender did a double take, and Professor Burbage — Charity — nodded severely. _Go on_ , she enunciated without making a noise, then held out her arms in a shrug as if to say, Well _I_ can't do it and you wanted to anyway!... and then she disappeared.

Uncertainly, Lavender walked up beside Draco and touched his arm, pulled gently at it to make him face her. He glanced down at her sidelong without turning his head and then, to her surprise, he reached for her without a word and pressed his face against her hair. When she embraced him, he was holding himself so tight, so tense, it felt like he might snap in her arms. After a few moments, he let his arms fall and stepped away, but she followed with a small growl, determined, pulling him in again. And finally, she felt him start to relax, heard his breath catch.

"God, but you're a stubborn git," she muttered.

"And you aren't?" he sniped back, but he hardly put his heart in the jibe, and she bent her head and smiled against his chest.

"Well... I guess my enemies calls me Barnacle Brown for a reason."

He stroked her hair, tucked a strand behind her ear in a gesture more tender than she'd been prepared for. "What do you want with me, Brown?" he asked quietly.

She blushed. "Nothing, beyond... well, the obvious. You just turned up here and I miss home... magic... the wizarding world."

"So why are you not at home?"

"I've promised things there that I can't deliver. And instead I want things that I'm afraid to do." She let out her breath in a rush of relief with the admission, with finally stating it out loud. 

He was silent a while and then gave a sigh. "Sucks, doesn't it?"

"Kind of." Lavender finally looked up at him. "I need to ask you about Professor Burbage."

He gave a tired nod, his face hardening. "Why don't you ask her?"

"Well, she disappeared. I get the feeling she wants to give you a chance to... do the right thing," Lavender said haltingly.

"The right thing." He let go of her and crossed to the bed, sat down on it.

"You _know_ what's the right thing?" she implored him.

"I know it's a crime to cover up a crime," he said grimly, and looked up at her. "I know the right thing is going to mean a new Wizengamot hearing for my family, and possibly prison time for my father; he barely escaped it the first round. Hell, maybe for me, too, but honestly? I think I may be beyond caring about that." He took a sudden, heaving breath, as if he were drowning under an invisible weight, and crashed his fist into the palm of his other hand. "Why do they always have to try to get away with less than the truth? Just because the rest of those goons said nothing, because they could easily get away with it, why couldn't we just... do the right fucking thing? The decent thing, for fucking once?"

She swallowed. "Can you give me an outline?"

"I suppose you won't swear not to tell anyone."

"That sounds like a promise I'd advise my best friend not to make," she said steadily. "But I would rather hope you'll be the one to tell someone."

Draco closed his eyes a second. "Capture by Walden Macnair. Torture by _Cruciatus_... several, my father included. Death by the Killing Curse. Voldemort." His mouth worked as if trying to form words and fight them at once, but finally he croaked it out. "Disappearance by giant snake."

She was crying again. She couldn't help the tears running down her face. "A-and you? Were you—?"

"I was there when Walden Macnair brought Professor Burbage to my home. I was ordered to cast _Crucio_ , like the others, and had it cast on me in turn by the Dark Lord for my failure. I sat with a dozen other people and saw him torture and kill her. I saw the snake devour her on our dining table." He looked up at her wiping tears from her face with the heels of her hands. "I'm sorry," he whispered, whether for her grief or for Charity's fate or for his unwilling part in it, she couldn't tell. Maybe all of it.

"You've got to tell someone, Draco."

"I just did," he said tiredly.

"No, I mean—"

"That means I will, all right?" He shook his head. "Do you imagine I don't understand that I've left you no choice, either?"

"Well, if you intended to let me leave the room..."

His head whipped up, eyes ablaze, and she saw that she'd not only offended him; she'd hurt him. "Fuck you," he ground out. "I'm not my father."

 _Ouch_. That nerve must be raw as hell. Lavender made a grimace. "I'm sorry. It just struck me that I'd kind of taken it for granted. That's... a good thing, I guess?"

He gave a jerky nod and let out a breath, meeting her gaze with a sort of attempt at a smile. "Doubt I could prevent you from leaving the room even if I'd wanted to. You seem like a pretty capable witch."

"I am," she said, with more conviction than she'd felt in a while. She looked at him, uncertain what to do, and strange as it was, she felt more for him than she'd done before he'd told her this terrible thing. It was clear he'd not been a willing participant in Charity's fate, nor a happy participant in the cover-up. And... Charity seemed to have her own sort of plan for how she preferred things to go. She walked over to the door, put her feet into the warm, fuzzy slippers, and turned to him again.

"I have breakfast with my uncles and aunt and cousin in the restaurant kitchen in half an hour. Come down and eat with us?"

She'd shocked him, she saw. He shook his head in disbelief. "Don't you think that's a terrible idea, right now?"

"Why? Because we almost had sex? That's ridiculous. Or because they're three Muggles and a Squib? They don't bite, Draco."

He scowled at her. "No, damn it, because... I just told you I passively sat by a murder, and helped cover it up!"

Lavender regarded him thoughtfully, hands stuck into the coat of her robe. "Draco... when the Carrows ruled Hogwarts, I once tried to cast _Crucio_ at a good friend because I was so frightened of being hurt again, myself, that I couldn't stand it. I saw many others do the same," she said quietly. "He forgave me, but I'm not sure I'll ever forgive myself. I may come over as a brash and bold Gryff. But I've learnt that being brave can cost so much it leaves you shaking and that life is... just horrible choices sometimes." She shrugged. "I failed at it, too, by the way. Thank God."

"I didn't always," Draco said starkly. "I'm no Gryffindor, and fear of pain... can be a pretty efficient motivator."

She nodded slowly, valuing his honesty when all was said and done. "I'll meet you in half an hour, then." She glanced around, searching in vain for another glimpse of Professor Burbage, then gripped her wand in her pocket and Apparated away to her room.

***

Charity sat in one of the balcony chairs, enjoying the sound of birds starting to wake at the touch of gold on the horizon, when he came out and joined her. 

"Hello, Draco," she said with a quick smile up at him.

"We need to talk, I think," he said in his curt way, but the fear and belligerence seemed gone, and she nodded.

"That would probably be a good idea. Please, sit down." As if she were in her old office, Charity thought ruefully. Well, old habits died hard. Draco, of course, had never visited her office.

He did sit, facing her across the table, leaning his elbows on it, his shoulders hunched as his gaze flickered out to sea for uncertain moments. But finally he looked at her, straight into her eyes. "I'm so damn sorry, for — all of it. Everything you had to endure."

"I appreciate that, Draco. But I don't blame you for any of that."

"How can you say that?" The boy sounded defensive, frustrated.

"I have eyes to see with and ears to hear with. You'll recall, I never asked you to help me. I understood you had no leverage. Your standing with Voldemort looked like some sort of hostage situation by the time they brought me around. You may have joined his ranks willingly, but... well, you were young and had your ears tooted full of that pureblood supremacy junk since you were born, excuse me for stating it so bluntly. And that _Crucio_ you cast; I was rather too distraught to appreciate it at the time, but I don't think you even tried. You took one for me, instead."

"Then why... are you haunting me?" he asked hesitantly. "That is, I think I may understand now, but... after so long... I never saw you, until in the spring."

She gave a helpless shrug, her mouth twisting in a despondency that sometimes was hard to quell, even now. "Well, you see, I was rather dismayed when I realised what I had done. I should have passed on! I was just so terribly hurting and scared when he killed me. And somehow I knew what he intended to do with that snake. And I couldn't accept it, any of it. I wasn't even fifty! And no one would ever learn my fate, or feel any respect or outrage for what I had gone through. So I turned back, and regretted it bitterly at once." The first thing she'd seen was her foreboding about the snake confirmed. Charity fell silent, recalling the desperate fear of the realisation of what she had done. She still found it well nigh impossible to accept. "And then, of course, there was the fact of being tied to the house where it had happened. I tried so hard to leave. In the end, I just hid myself as well as I could. Fled to a faraway, unused corner of the house and went into... almost a hibernation of sorts. I understood that if Voldemort had discovered I was there — he could do the darkest magic, and I didn't feel safe."

"So you didn't emerge until the spring?"

"No," she said sadly. "And then I realised that everything had changed. But not for me. Your mother caught a glimpse of me once, outside your room, and... I quickly figured out, you were my best chance." She would have shuddered at the memory, had she had a working body. Narcissa Malfoy had looked frightened and absolutely murderous. There were ways to tie down ghosts, and Charity had made very sure after that not to be detected by anyone but Draco.

"I see," Draco said slowly. "But you made it to Crete. How did that happen?"

"I honestly don't know! I suddenly found myself here. I've got a theory that it helps that I spent one of my best holidays here and have such wonderful memories, but... I also think I simply may have become more attached to you, than to the house. I believe I could return to the Manor, now, but I doubt I could go somewhere else unless I could follow you there."

"All right," he said slowly. "So what do we need to do?"

"I'm very proud of you, Draco," she said quietly. "If you could take me to Hogwarts to speak with Minerva McGonagall as soon as you're able, I should think everything will be as well taken care of, as it possibly could. She... is still alive, I hope?"

He nodded. "She's Headmistress at Hogwarts, now."

Charity closed her eyes a moment. "Thank god," she whispered. 

"I... Well, I have an appointment to meet Theodore in the afternoon. Would it be possible to wait until tonight?" Draco asked politely.

"Ah, Theodore Nott. Your friend who crashed the wedding?" She eyed him pensively. "He was very torn, Draco. I saw him pacing back and forth past the Manor's front doors and tearing at his hair, and it's really not like that boy. It didn't come easily to him to hurt you, so I think you can afford to be magnanimous."

"Yes, Professor," Draco said with a trace of his old, arrogant drawl. It was actually encouraging to hear it, the familiarity of it; she suppressed a smile. The boy needed to piece himself together, to find a better way of being Draco, going forward, and he'd have to work with what was there. Teachers were trained to spot potential. She'd no trouble seeing it in this intelligent, misled young man.

"We have an appointment for tonight, then? Around... say, eight o'clock?"

He dropped his gaze, and she had a sense of the implications of his choice crashing in on him as he studied his hands. But when he looked back up he met her gaze and nodded resolutely. "I'll Apparate to Chania and take the first Portkey to London, and then go to Hogwarts from there. We'll just have to hope you can follow along."

"I shall do my best." She sat up straighter in the chair. "Now, I won't keep you any longer. You should go and make yourself ready for breakfast with our lovely Lavender and her family."

Draco made a sceptical moue of a grimace, as he rose up. "Do you _honestly_ think that's a good idea?"

"Have you ever had breakfast with three Muggles and a Squib before?" she asked archly, and winked at him. "Live a little, Mr Malfoy!"

He actually laughed at the friendly jibe, and she grinned. Even more so when he stopped in the doorway and asked, "Hey, what is it about Knossos, anyway?"

"Oh!" She sat up eagerly. "I spent one of the most wonderful holidays of my life wandering about that place. It's got several gorgeous features you ought to see. At the museum in Heraklion is an original bull-leaping fresco I would give my right arm to see again—" She cast an involuntary glance down at the blue shimmering thing that passed for an arm, and couldn't help laughing, sad as it was. It couldn't be more different than her strong, tanned young body that summer almost three decades ago, when death had been the furthest thing from her mind. "Well. That's a paltry offer, I realise. In the palace itself, there's the oldest throne room in Europe - restored in such simple, colourful beauty, it seems to erase the walls between times and worlds. It will take your breath away. There are other frescoes on the grounds, as well — the maritime one with dolphins in the Queen's Megaron is my favourite — that convey an amazing zest for life from people who are long dead. And of course, there's the story of the labyrinth and the Minotaur. I suppose you read the brochure."

"I did. It said it was a myth."

"May have been, might not. Muggles tend not to believe in the sort of monsters that we very well know could be real. No wonder, since we do our level best to conceal their existence. Anyway, the labyrinth probably existed in some form, perhaps in the castle itself; its layout is most intricate. But I don't think anyone knows for certain exactly how or where ."

"That yarn trick seemed pretty obvious to me," Draco said, and she smiled at the dry delivery. She really wished she could have had him as a student, and that he'd been as open-minded then as he seemed willing to try to be, now.

"In a way it is. It is symbols in action, like all such old myths. Something we all can relate to. Any help out of a maze. Of course, Theseus wasn't much of a gentleman once he'd made use of Ariadne's help out of the labyrinth. He took her away on his ship and then left her behind on a deserted isle. Kind of a jerk, in the end."

"Yes, chivalry is underrated," said Draco, with a fleeting little smile she didn't quite know what to make of. A private joke, it seemed. "Well, if I make it to Knossos today, you're welcome to come along, Professor."

"Charity," she said. "Please." She'd so missed hearing her name. It felt like an anchor, but perhaps that was a better argument for not getting overly used to it. "That's a kind offer, Draco. We'll see. I'm trying not to get too attached..." 

He went indoors, and Charity glided up from the chair and down from the balcony, into the garden. Who would ever have thought she'd get a chance to see Crete again? And Hogwarts! Minerva! Hope fluttered through her being quite like a heartbeat, and she tried to ignore it, all too aware of the strong risk of disappointment. 

But she'd heard rumours, a few years ago, about some contraption at the Ministry. Some kind of conveyance with no possible return. If it were true, she thought she'd be willing to risk the unknown. 

If it were not... well, Hogwarts was far preferable to Malfoy Manor. And she'd always got along well with the Friar of Hufflepuff House.

***

He knocked on the restaurant door at five past six, and Lavender quickly came running to open it and let him in. "I never doubted you, Malfoy." She smiled as widely as the last time she'd said it, but it sounded less cheeky this time. He supposed there'd been more in the balance, this time.

"Glad to hear it," he said, and followed her between the tables in the empty restaurant, in the door through which he'd seen her aunt run out to break up their hostilities the other night.

The big kitchen was warm and smelled mouth-wateringly of freshly baked bread. They sat gathered around a square, grey-speckled table made in some sort of Muggle material he didn't recognise, her two uncles and the young girl. "Uncle Matthew," Lavender said. "Uncle Manouil. Niki, my cousin." Niki waved her fingers at Draco, and Lavender pointed to the tall, thin chef, her curly black hair pulled back in a long ponytail as she stirred something in a pot on the big stove. "My aunt Eleni."

Draco had walked in with an abject apology for his earlier conduct on his tongue, but never got the chance.

"Nice to properly meet you, James. Or is that Jim?" said Matthew and winked at him.

"I... um, call me Draco," he said and sat down in the chair Lavender had pulled out for him beside her own. They'd already laid an extra plate for him, and he felt oddly warmed by the implied welcome. "That wasn't the best name, I take it. I spotted it at a newspaper stand next door to the Tourist Information Centre where I booked the hotel."

"It does sound like a safe choice, doesn't it? You could hardly know it is a uniquely recognisable name," Matthew said and stretched for the coffee pot on the counter. "Coffee? Or would you prefer tea?"

He would, but said, "Coffee is fine, thanks."

"Would you pass me the pot of tea for Draco, luv?" said Matthew to Niki.

"Are you a Legilimens?" he asked wryly, before thinking better of it and wincing.

"I'm a Squib," Matthew said, pouring Draco's tea as contentedly as if he'd said, I'm an Englishman, or, I'm a Curse-Breaker. "It was just a hunch. Milk or sugar?"

"Black, please. No sugar."

Eleni was waving with her spatula. "Please, Draco, help yourself. We have yoghurt, fruit, froutalia — that's the omelette there, is delicious — bread, tahini, jam, Danish..."

"He's more of a savoury person," said Lavender and heaped his plate with froutalia — it was thick with sausage, potatoes, tomatoes, and cheese. She put a spoonful of olives on his plate as well and grabbed a piece of fragrant bread and drizzled thick, golden oil on it. "Eleni's bread," she said, "will be the bane of me. It's so bloody good you can't believe it until you've tried it. It's all heaping up on my hips though."

Eleni snorted, as she brought the pot from the stove and put it on the table. It was full of steamy hot soup. She sat down between Niki and Manouil and started ladling soup into a bowl. "You were only skin and bones when you came here, Lévanta!" 

"And tits," Lavender murmured out of the corner of her mouth to Draco. "They really stood out when I was so thin."

He coughed, trying to keep the delicious mouthful of warm, crusty bread in his mouth as he cast an automatic look before remembering both her uncles sat there.

Matthew turned a page in his paper. Manouil filled in another word in his crossword, only one bushy eyebrow somewhat shooting up. Niki giggled into her tea cup and muttered the words that had flown through Draco's mind for a split second. "They still do." 

"Lévanta," said Eleni, shaking her head and clearly trying not to smile. "You make Draco uncomfortable."

"I'm used to it," said Draco, in the same moment as Lavender said coyly, "I hope so."

"How long have you lived in Greece, Matthew?" added Draco, determined to get polite conversation as well as his straying imagination back on track.

"Since the eighties. I moved to Crete, bought a derelict farm up in the hills here. Met these two wonderful people." He nodded to Manouil and Eleni. "Decided to stay. Still got the farm, have a few olive and lemon trees and a small vineyard. Enough to make a bit of wine, oil and lemons for the restaurant."

"His boyfriend had died. His heart was broken," Lavender said seriously, clearly intoning a family legend. "He walked into the restaurant the first week; it was Eleni and Manouil waiting tables then, their parents running the place. He got talking to them both that night and stayed after closing time. He was so thin, right?" she asked Eleni, who nodded gravely. "...Just like me. No tits, though."

"Thank you, Lavender," said Matthew, chuckling. He put aside his paper and took a sip of his coffee. "That was all a long time ago," he said to Draco. "Manouil and I bought the hotel beside the restaurant ten years ago. I've put down roots here, now. And you? Enjoying Crete, so far?"

"Yes," said Draco truthfully. The things he hadn't enjoyed, well, they had nothing to do with Crete. "Lake Kournas was nice. I'm going to Chania today, to meet... a friend." 

"Oh! Who? I'd hoped we could go to Knossos," said Lavender, looking a bit crestfallen.

"Theodore... my, well, the bride-napper. Maybe I'll have time for both." He took a deep breath. "But I'm leaving tonight. I'm taking Charity to Chania, then straight on to Hogwarts. She'd like to see McGonagall."

"Oh." Her eyes widened with relieved understanding. And then she threw her arms around him, there at the table, with her family looking on, and Draco carefully wrapped an arm around her, looking dumb-founded back at them. 

"I'd... actually wondered if you would mind coming along," he said when he found his voice again. "You've got more of a rapport with McGonagall."

"Yes, you could say that." Lavender sniggered, but fell silent, biting her lip. "It's just... so sudden, and... I can't just walk out on everything here on half a day's notice and—"

"Of course," Draco said immediately, irritated with himself for presuming. He started to let his arm slide down but she hugged him tighter, and he reconsidered and let it stay.

"Lavender," Matthew said gently. "It's not sudden. It's probably a bit overdue."

"If you want to get rid of me, just say so," she challenged him, and sounded only half joking.

Eleni and Niki immediately protested ferociously, but Matthew just shook his head. "You know that's not the issue. You've been a great help and you're always welcome here. But poppet, this isn't your world." 

"Why not? You moved here yourself from England, Uncle Matthew—"

"That's not what I mean. You're a witch, Lavender! You have magic, and an exciting future ahead of you in the wizarding world! You have a wand and you should use it for something besides making our beds and cleaning our bathrooms. Or decorating Manouil's scooter a new pastel colour every week," he added like an afterthought, glancing at the Greek.

"Heh!" said Manouil, his eyes crinkling and his grizzled moustache jumping with his deep chuckle. It was his first verbal input to the conversation since the friendly grunt he'd given in introduction.

"Do you have any idea what I would have given at your age to be a part of that world?" Matthew asked more quietly. "I imagined it would be like being blind and offered sight! Now, I've found my place in this other world," he said with a smile, and handed her a sparkling clean white handkerchief that he drew out of his pocket. "Which is also an overlap with your world, and I wouldn't trade my life here for anything. But it's time for you to move on to the next chapter, I believe. Come, now, love. I think you know it, too."

Lavender dried her eyes, and blew her nose wretchedly. "I haven't written to Parvati, yet." 

"Then talk to her instead. You two practically read each other's minds, anyway," he told her calmly. "You can pack what you need for the next few days and I'll send the rest on from the Portkey station at Chania. And we'll see you again next summer, if not sooner."

"Well," said Niki morosely after a beat. "We'd better hire three new people to do Lavender's job, then. Or I'll have to get up in the morning an hour _before_ the arse crack of dawn."

They all laughed at that. "Or work three times faster," teased Eleni, and tousled her hair.

Draco had been eating the scrumptious omelette in silence, superfluous to the discussion he had unwittingly sparked and somewhat astounded by all that these Muggles seemed to know about the wizarding world. Wasn't that against the Statute of Secrecy, or something? Although he suspected the logistics of keeping such a thing hidden within a family might be difficult, to say the least. But beyond that, another feeling was growing in him, a realisation that was as liberating as it was crushing in its simplicity.

He'd never spoken to a Muggle before. Had never met any Squib at length other than Filch, at Hogwarts. Here in this clean, bright, tidy kitchen with its wealth of delicious food set wandlessly, efficiently on the table, with Lavender's courteous Squib uncle and her stoic Muggle uncle accepting him as a guest despite his ill-behaviour, her warm-eyed aunt and impishly sweet cousin chatting with him like an instant friend...

He realised there was essentially nothing that set them apart from him, except their lack of magic, and the fact that they probably were far better people than him.

"Draco," said Lavender. She squeezed his arm and looked up at him, a question in her expression. "I guess I'll come with you, then, tonight? Is it all right?"

"Yeah," he said gruffly, nodding as he met her worried eyes. "I appreciate it."

***

He returned to his room to find another owl outside his window, an unfamiliar one, this time. The envelope, however, had his mother's writing on it, and he clenched his teeth and slashed it open with his wand at once. Money fell out, a pouch that turned out to contain Greek wizarding silver and gold, and a neatly tied wad of Muggle paper money. Frowning, he smoothed out the letter to read.

_Draco, dearest—_

_Your father was contacted by the Kéntravros Inn in Chania today, and informed that no one had checked into the booked suite. You must realise how worried we are to learn this after receiving your extremely upsetting letter last night. I understand that you must be in a state of shock after Tracey's and Theo's betrayal, but I implore you not to act rashly and risk making matters worse. I assume you're in the vicinity of the Kéntavros as our previous letter reached you so fast, but Draco, please, reply to this owl at once and let us know exactly where you are._

_We're enclosing some money, in case you should have need for it. Please, darling, let me know that everything's all right. We are family, and we are always stronger together._

_Love,_

_Mother_

The wave of guilt surging up in him like nausea was as expected, but it receded — mostly — quicker than it used to, and he frowned, an uneasy feeling settling in his gut. Something felt off, though he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Maybe it just irritated him that at nineteen, they still attempted to monitor him this way, manipulate his feelings this way, trying to pin him down and seize back control as if he were a disobedient dog on the run. 

And there was no acknowledgement of the frustration implied by that 'extremely upsetting letter' or that punch to his father's face. Of course. 

But he supposed she must be worried. He found parchment, scrawled a terse line that he was all right and there was no need for concern, and sent the owl on its way, frowning again as he followed its flight. His family didn't keep these small brown owls. They were all eagle-owls, tawnies, or barn owls. 

He shrugged and tried to put it out of mind for now, and went off to find warmer clothes in his wardrobe since the temperature had dropped again. At the last minute, he went back and mulishly pocketed some of the Muggle money and a few of the coins, since Lavender had opted to come with him to Chania and a trip to Knossos afterwards was a possibility.

They arrived at an official Apparition spot near the crescent of the Old Venetian Harbour, glimmering blue in the cool, bright November noon, and she promptly guided him to an ice cream bar nearby. She was wearing Muggle denims and a warm red woolen jumper that accentuated all her curves in a way that kept drawing Draco's gaze, for all that he tried not to drool like a dog. He suspected she was quite aware of its effects, though, swinging her hips just so and peeking at him sidelong under those lashes with a devilish little smile when she caught him looking. Cheeky monkey, all right.

He insisted on paying for their ice creams as well as a coffee for her with his Muggle money, and left her there at a table in the sun, eating his ice cream cone as he trotted off to locate Theodore. It was something she'd called soft serve, a mix of chocolate and vanilla, and he thought this was something that even his parents would have had to admit that the Muggles had got exactly right. It could have held its own with the best of Fortesque's, and despite his claims that he wasn't a dessert person, he managed to eat it all up, to the very last bit of the cone. 

He found Theo seated outside the Café Eureka in the town's wizarding street. It was a small place with bright blue furniture lined up against a honey-yellow plaster wall, a rustic fountain burbling happily amongst the tables, and Theo was wearing sunglasses against the mid-day glare, a cashmere scarf and jumper against the brisk air, and sporting a very red nose. The sight of that nose in itself was so pitiful that it was hard not to just reach out a hand and say that never mind, he actually had far more pressing problems to deal with.

But not so hard that he couldn't manage to be a bit of a bastard about it.

"Hello, Judas," said Draco and flung himself down in the opposite chair.

"Draco! Thank god!" Theo flopped back in his chair and let out a breath of such obvious relief, it spoke volumes about his tension ahead of the meeting. He sat up uncertainly, leaning forward. "How are you?" His voice was uncharacteristically hesitant as well as very congested, and when he slipped off the sunglasses, he was studying Draco with such remorseful concern that Draco almost rolled his eyes.

"As you can see, I've survived your public back-stabbing."

Theo held up his hands, sitting up. Draco could practically see him marshal up his rehearsed lines before he spoke — Theo wasn't one to ever attend diplomatic proceedings unprepared. "Before you say anything, or hex me, or kill me, please, let me say just one thing. I apologize with all my heart for the way it happened. I tried to get Tracey to call it off before the wedding. I truly did my best to convince her it would be all right. She was too worried about the scandal, and what it would do to her family's situation — they are genuinely struggling to keep the house. And I meant to stay away that day, but in the end I simply couldn't. A fucking traditional blood bonding, God help me. Your parents don't mess around." He sighed. "And now, you can say what you want, or hex me... or, I suppose, kill me." 

He dropped his wand on the table.

"Fuck you," said Draco with a glare. "Melodrama doesn't suit you, Theodore. You know perfectly well I'm not going to kill you." He shook his head, and fired off a mild stinging hex to Theo's sore nose. Theo clapped his hand to his face and grimaced, but bore it graciously.

"Pick up the bill and we're even," Draco said. "Where's Tracey?"

Theo eyed him warily, clearly finding it hard to trust in Draco's relative equanimity. "Look. I'm sorry that it happened that way, but I'm absolutely _not_ sorry that I did it. I love her more than I thought it were possible for me to love someone. _She_ hexed me, too, by the way."

Draco raised his eyebrows.

"For waiting until the eleventh hour if I were going to make a grand gesture," Theodore explained, "instead of, say, the tenth, the ninth, or the sixth." He gave a self-deprecating shrug, huddling down into his big scarf. "Unfortunately, spontaneity is something I only indulge in upon extremely thorough examination."

Draco couldn't help laughing. "No shit. Well, thank Salazar for your thoroughly examined, dashing rescue. I feel like you've rescued me along with my bride, if I'm honest." A waiter came out and approached their table, and he ordered a glass of Assyrtiko and a glass of water. "No offence," he said when the man had disappeared inside. "I don't mean that she's, er... unattractive, far from it. But she always had this barrier up with me, you know?" 

Theo stared at him across the table, disbelief making cracks in his repentant demeanour. "Draco. We were shits to her, more or less, almost all the way through school. For being half-blood. We kept her on the fringe, and she knew she was there only at our mercy. I only pulled my head out of my arse in our seventh year. It took a long time for her to trust me. And you've never really tried."

"I did!" Draco defended himself, glaring back. He'd been on his best behaviour. He'd complimented her when appropriate, had been a perfect gentleman, had kissed her politely on the cheek after every date and never pressed for more, sensing it wasn't welcome. He'd been vaguely aware she had no reason to like him, but he... well, since she hadn't brought it up, he'd assumed she'd forgotten all about that.

"Did you ever apologise?" asked Theo rhetorically.

Draco felt his face go warm. "I though of it as water under the bridge." Feeling upended and on the defensive, he went on the attack. "How long a time, exactly, did it take for my fiancée to _trust you_?"

Theo went red, too. It flushed his cheeks almost the shade of his nose. "A few months. And it made no difference. Look, you know my estate is in almost as bad straits as Fawley Hall. The Ministry bled me dry for Dad's transgressions. We didn't have quite as deep a war chest as your family," he said bitterly, "and not as craftily distributed and hidden, to be sure."

They glowered at each other, on edge between old friendship and new hostility. 

"I'm not my father," said Draco stubbornly.

Theo's expression softened somewhat. He sighed and took out a handkerchief, blew his nose and cast a discreet cleaning charm. "I know. You can be a right entitled arse, though." 

It came practically fondly, and Draco shrugged and acknowledged the indisputable comment with a slight smirk. "So you and Tracey have two estates and no money between you. What are you going to do about that? Sell one of them?"

"Hardly." It came from a woman who'd been sitting a couple of tables over and had just got up to pass their table. She sat down beside Theodore instead. Draco was suddenly aware of his mouth being open and closed it so firmly he felt his teeth clack.

She was in a blue dress and a light summer cloak, a straw hat over her long, dark hair, her gaze warily self-conscious as she eyed him with a little twitch to her lips. She looked... not so different, yet completely changed, looser, somehow, as if she'd shed a straitjacket, and from the way she studied him, he had to wonder if she were seeing some similar change in him, as well. 

"Hello, Draco," she said curtly. "I won't apologise."

He snorted, surprised. "Fine. Theo has just informed me that I owe you one, anyway." She was still watching him, and he sighed, the conversation with Charity popping up in his mind. He was getting some practice, at least. "Sorry. Also, sorry for not realising before that I ought to have... er, realised that—"

Tracey actually laughed. "It's fine. I forgive you for being a prick and a bully in school. As long as you make no trouble for us now."

Charity had been more gracious, Draco reflected, managing with some effort and with the help of a warning glance from Theodore to bite his tongue on the snarky retort that wanted out.

"So about the estates?" he asked instead.

Tracey shrugged, studying her hands. "It has become clear to me," she said slowly, "that as much as I love my parents and the place where I grew up, if they care about me they should work to salvage our home by other means than selling me to the highest bidder." She looked at him defiantly, as if daring him to argue with her. 

Draco just nodded. He understood why it felt like heresy to say it. He also found himself in whole-hearted agreement. "If my parents wish to repair the damage my father has caused to our name with his choices, I'm all for it, but I'm going to refuse to be their easy way out, as well."

She leaned back in the chair, eyeing him with some puzzlement. Draco raised his chin in discomfited query, then realised that Theodore was looking too, but they were both actually looking over his shoulder in a way that made Draco's nape tingle.

"Is that _Lavender Brown_ running this way like the devil is after her?" asked Theodore, frowning.

"Lavender?" Draco threw a glance over his shoulder and scrambled up from the chair, just in time to catch her as she came barrelling right at him.

"I saw your parents," she said, out of breath. "They just turned up right outside the ice cream bar and asked the girl at the counter about you, by description. I slipped round the corner and came straight here. Draco, do they _know_ you're here?"

"No," he said, staring at her, his stomach plummeting right to his feet, it felt like. "Right where you were sitting?" Where he'd been just minutes before? "That's weird."

"I thought so, too. It's not even a wizarding place." Lavender narrowed her eyes at Theodore. "Did you tell Draco's parents that you're meeting him here?"

"Now, listen—" started Tracey indignantly before Theodore could even open his mouth.

"He wouldn't have," Draco broke her off, speaking to Lavender. He gripped her shoulder firmly. "But I got an owl from them this morning, and they've found out I'm not staying at the Kéntavros." 

"Draco... Could they somehow have found our hotel?" she asked, and he saw the worry on her face the same moment the thought occurred to him. 

"Charity," she whispered, and he nodded, his thoughts racing. What if his mother had guessed? If they'd tried to flush her out at the Manor, and not found her—

That little brown owl. It hadn't been sent from the Manor, and nor from England, he wagered. They'd already been here; they'd followed him here, and he doubted even the detail about the inn contacting them first, now.

_"...please, let us know exactly where you are..."_

"Could they have put a trace on you? If they were worried... something they could track you by?"

"They sent me some money, this morning, with the letter that arrived. Some Greek wizarding, some Muggle..." He swore softly. "I paid for you at the ice cream bar. And I left some at the hotel room." Frantically, he dug the paper money and coins out of his pocket. Lavender had her wand ready and cast an _Incendio_ on the former. They burned to ashes on the cobblestones, as Draco threw the coins into the fountain.

"Are you two staying at a hotel together?" asked Theodore finally, apparently so flummoxed by this fact that discretion and tact temporarily had deserted him.

"In a manner of speaking. Theo, Tracey, I'll catch you up later. If you don't want a chat with my parents, and I would recommend against it, I suggest you Apparate away from here, stat." Putting his arm around Lavender, he mouthed, "The bull-leaping fresco?" and she didn't question it, just grabbed her wand and Apparated him along.

***

Charity made herself as small as she could, hunched down between a cupboard and the electrical cooking stove in the restaurant's kitchen. She'd frightened the cats out of the room, and she believed she'd caused the hum of power in the stove to go silent, and she was so sorry for that. But Lucius Malfoy's voice was an arrogant drawl in her head, and she was just as frightened as the cats. 

They'd Apparated into Draco's room. She'd heard Mr Malfoy tell his wife to look in the bathroom for 'her', and had fled down to the reception, too panicked to be able to detect and follow Draco anywhere; then to the room beyond it where Lavender's uncle was at his desk. He didn't properly spot her in the room bright with sunlight; it was hard enough for a wizard, let alone a Squib, but he did see or sense something, she felt sure, suddenly getting up and looking in her direction, and she crouched down quickly behind the couch.

Then she heard their voices at the reception. Narcissa Malfoy's was polite and measured, her husband's cool and arrogant, but they were full of awareness of privilege, both of them, requesting permission to search the house. And they'd been frightened, too, oh yes. It wasn't only her and the cats. The young girl at the desk had fielded their questions with stubborn resistance, and then Lavender's uncle had intervened, striding out into the reception and coldly informing them that he'd just Flooed the Auror office in Chania. Which Charity knew for a fact that he'd not done, but she'd noticed, then, the small fireplace in the corner and the vase with green powder beside it. Well. So he _had_ the option, but _they_ had wands, and she didn't wait to hear the end of it; she fled on to the kitchen where Draco had been that morning.

She sat there a long time. She sank inwards, hiding far within herself again, the way she'd done for weeks and months at a time at Malfoy Manor, and only snapped out of it when she heard a voice very close. Right in front of her. It wasn't any of the Malfoys, it was Lavender's uncle, and he was speaking carefully to her. He seemed wary, perhaps, but not threatening, or hostile.

"Hello, there," he said.

Charity peeked up over her fingertips and found him crouched down to be on level with her.

"My sister-in-law told me the stove had died, and that it was very cold around it, so I came to check. I expect you're the explanation for both?"

"I am so terribly sorry," she said wretchedly. "I didn't do it on purpose."

"No worries. We should be able to fix it. I wonder if you could perhaps move away from it a bit; that would help."

She nodded mutely, and stood up, inching to the side until she stood by the French doors facing the garden. It was harder for him to see her there, and that was perhaps rude on her part, but it also felt safer. She noticed Lavender's other uncle and her aunt, and the young girl, at the far end of the room, staring at him as if he were speaking to himself. They didn't look scared, exactly. Crestfallen, rather. "Did they leave?" she asked quietly.

"Draco's parents?" He nodded. "Yes. Is it them you're hiding from?"

"They want to tie me down," she whispered. "Stash me away. Or worse, if they can."

"Well, they're gone, and we're certainly not letting them into the kitchen. Is there anything I can do for you, Ms—"

"Burbage," she said. "Professor. Charity. Please." Oh, she felt so muddled, and she forced herself to push at the deathly fear, shove it away so she could _think_. She stood there quietly in the kitchen, eyes closed, and gradually it came to her, the worried voice of a young man, in a room she _knew_ , talking to a girl... 

And all at once she was there, in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum, behind Draco and Lavender who stood before the magnificent painting she still remembered with a clarity as if she'd seen it yesterday. The Bull-Leaping Fresco of Knossos. Two women in profile flanking a charging bull, the one in front holding the beast's mighty horns, and a man balancing on top of the bull on his hands as if in mid-leap over its back. Charity took a quick look around and figured she was fairly safe here in the well-lit room, but there was another group of tourists nearby, and she daren't speak just yet. 

Draco wound an arm around Lavender's waist and gently pulled her close to his side, and Charity couldn't help smiling.

"I've really got you mixed up in it, Brown, haven't I?" He met her gaze, his lips turning up a rueful half-smile. "You're free to back off now, if you prefer."

Lavender seemed to be blushing, oh, heavens. To be nineteen, again. Charity felt a bit guilty for eaves-dropping; she'd done all she could to avoid it, but it simply couldn't be helped and... all right, so she was feeling nosy. 

"No worries," Lavender said. "I think I got myself mixed up in it. And if I backed off now, I'd go crazy with not knowing." She paused, giving him a sort of searching look. "No second thoughts?"

He shook his head slowly. "If we manage to pull it off, it's going to be a relief to have this score settled. If my parents and I end up charged for abetting and covering up a crime — well. Firstly, you shouldn't discount the skills of my family's lawyers. And secondly, at least there are no longer any Dementors in Azkaban."

"I'll visit you if it comes to that," Lavender promised. "I'll smuggle in Ogden's for you in my bra." 

Charity barely managed to quell a giggle, and guilt got the better of her; she looked around for a better place to wait.

Draco snorted. "You're making me almost look forward to it. One worry at a time." Running a hand back through his pale hair, he looked around distractedly. "Where's the Throne Room?"

"That's outside town, at the Knossos Palace grounds. We'll need to Apparate to get there. Why?"

"Charity recommended it explicitly. Another of her favourites, I think." He let his arm slide away from her waist and offered her his hand. "Worth a try, maybe?" He almost walked straight into Charity, and stopped dead in his tracks and shuddered with cold. Thank heavens, at that point the other group of tourists was finally budging, moving on down the length of the room.

"What?" said Lavender.

"Charity," Draco said quietly. "If you're around, for pity's sake don't fuck around with us."

"Rude, Mr Malfoy," said Charity in her Professor's voice. "I'm here. Over to your left a bit." She gestured toward the fresco, relieved to _finally_ be able to give voice to the overwhelming nostalgia at seeing it again. "The two figures flanking the bull are women, while the one seeming to balance on top of it is a man. We know this because of the colours — it was convention to paint women pale, and men tanned. The exact opposite of you two," she said, smiling as it occurred to her. "It's interesting, see, that we can't know whether the action is static or dynamic — it could seem as if they represent three stages of movement, where one grabs the horns and uses the bull's tossing head to swing oneself over and land hands-first on the back, and then jumps off. But as far as I know, that act has proven impossible to replicate in reality. And they seem like three distinct figures. Of course, it's also quite impossible to stand still like that holding the horns of a charging bull! It may be simply a symbolic presentation of a myth, or rite. I've always wanted to see it as a leap, though, because wouldn't that be the coolest thing in the world?"

"Charity! All right, I think that was Professor Burbage, actually." They were squinting to see her; Lavender had a hand pressed eloquently to her chest in relief, and was laughing.

Draco cast a look at the other group of tourists, quite a way off now, as if she wouldn't have taken that into consideration — really! He touched her shoulder, frowned and let his hand fall to his side. "Are you all right?"

She nodded. "Your parents stopped by," she said matter-of-factly, but her voice shook a bit. "I hid myself away in the kitchen until they left. I think I caused a malfunction in the stove. I'm so sorry. Electrical apparatus isn't very compatible with ghosts, but it was a desperate situation."

"They'll fix it, don't worry," said Lavender, glancing over her shoulder and waving them both on with her to a completely unobserved corner. "Charity, we've been discussing our options. We're worried Draco's parents may be keeping an eye on the Portkey station in Chania, so we've decided to go to the one in Athens. But I've only been there once, and it's 300 kilometers to Apparate, across open sea."

"Via the islands, then, perhaps? There are thousands of them."

"That's the problem," said Draco, shaking his head. "Too easy to get lost. But Lavender says her brother's left one of his brooms in storage at the hotel. It's a fairly new Nimbus, with navigation options — he used it from England to Crete last summer, so it should be okay. It will be three-four hours flight to Athens; that's quite feasible. And we can touch down on an isle if we need a break."

"Which by Godric we will," muttered Lavender. She was looking rather less equanimous about the prospect of four hours on a broom than Draco did, Charity noted.

"Do we wait until tonight?" Charity asked carefully, and Draco shook his head.

"My parents are on our track. Lavender will Apparate back to the hotel and get the broom and a few supplies, and then we go."

She nodded slowly. She felt relieved and wistful at once. "I suppose... we couldn't go to Knossos and have a look around meanwhile, and meet up with you there, Lavender?"

Draco seemed about to voice an irate protest, looking at her as if she were not only a ghost but also mad, but Lavender gave a shrug full of good will and smiled. "Sure thing." She grabbed Draco, and Apparated away with him at once, straight into the Knossos grounds, and this time Charity followed him easily, unhampered by the panic she'd felt at the hotel.

Lavender Apparated straight on, and Charity looked out at the honey-coloured stone, the seemingly maze-like structure of partial walls, foundations and plinths; the warm red columns marking the North Pillar Hall, and memory came flooding back to her in a warm, sunny wave that might have knocked her off her feet, had she been alive. She still leaned back on a low wall, taking it all in. "They say this place used to have 1500 rooms," she mused. "It does look like it might have been known as a labyrinth, doesn't it? But it was all exquisitely, ingeniously planned..." 

Draco could hardly see her in the sunlight, he must be simply looking where her voice came from, and walked over to her and sat on the wall beside her. "And the monster? They can't have let it run around the palace to wreak havoc at will."

"Oh, yes, the Minotaur. Who knows? It seems it must have been a somewhat enclosed section, and I believe it's thought more likely to be found somewhere else, separate from the palace. Who can say if he ever even existed? Muggle historians and scientists, of course, don't believe in real monsters. The slaying of Athenian youngsters may have been a sacrificial rite performed by a priest in a bull mask, eventually elevated to myth." She shot him a wry look. "But every exciting story needs a good monster, don't you think?"

Draco snorted. "I think I feel ready for a story without monsters," he said, squinting at the sunlit grounds in front of them.

Charity smiled slightly. "I can't say I disagree."

"When were you here?" he asked. "How do you even know all this stuff?"

"Oh, long ago..." She sighed. "Thirty years ago? Something like that. I was eighteen. I'd just broken up with my fiancé — a frightful stuffed shirt, a good bit older than me, so it was no loss — and was enjoying my new freedom, backpacking through Europe. I ended up at this Muggle site by chance, really. And met a young man, just a bit older than you are now. He was working as a guide here..."

Draco looked uncomfortable, and she laughed to herself. Oh, she would spare him the details. It was practically impossible for him to imagine her as anything but a middle-aged woman, of course, and he was far too young to appreciate the fact that even at the advanced age of 48, a woman could still have hot red blood in her veins. Not that _she_ had, any longer, but she'd relished life until that awful, very last day of it.

But he'd been glorious, Costas. He'd appeared like a Greek god, bright Apollo himself, to her young, smitten gaze when she first laid eyes on him, a tall boy with laughing brown eyes, a charmingly aquiline nose, and sunlight glinting off his dark hair. She'd been pretty, too, then, if she said so herself, green eyes, shiny chestnut hair, small waist, great pins. They'd taken one look at each other and had spent the rest of her fourteen days on the island together, inseparable. She'd got to know Knossos better than any wizarding archaeological site she'd visited on that trip. It was then and there that her interest for the Muggle world had awakened. With Costas, with Knossos.

"What happened?" Draco asked at length, breaking off her reverie, and she shook off the memories and smiled at him. 

"I had the best two weeks of my life, and then I went home. Exchanged a few letters, that's all. It was impractical, with Muggle post, and of course, he didn't know I was a witch. At that time, pursuing a real relationship with a Muggle seemed unfeasible to me. As you know, I later changed my mind about that." She gazed out over the ground, and for a moment, she could almost see him walking there, a forever-young ghost of her own, smiling at her across the golden, crumbling walls of time. She smiled back at him, and let him fade. "You see, the thing is... it was a holiday fling. I was eighteen; he was twenty. When you're that age, things don't have to last forever. They can be beautiful precisely because they don't."

"Mmm," Draco murmured, looking thoughtful with his nineteen-year-old's perspective. Charity felt inordinately fond of him in that moment.

She jumped off the wall and grinned at him. "But enough about that. You've _got_ to see the Throne Room. And the Queen's Megaron with the Dolphin Fresco! Anything else we get time for, is gravy."

***

Lavender Apparated straight into her room, threw a few essentials into a small rucksack and then rushed down to find Uncle Matthew in his office. 

"Can't explain," she said. "I need Johnny's broomstick. Have there been anyone here who seemed — well..."

"Wizards, privileged, blonde, vaguely threatening?" he suggested, grabbing a couple of letters from his desk and rising from his chair. 

"All of the above." She leaned against the door, her heart seeming to plummet to her stomach. "So you spoke to them? What did they want? They didn't hurt anyone, did they?"

"No," he said, leading the way out the back, down the basement stairs. "They spoke to Niki at the reception desk, asked about Draco and his plans for the day and requested access to the private areas of the hotel under extremely dubious pretense. She didn't give them any information, and I heard it from the back room and walked out and told them I'd just Flooed the Auror office in Chania. Don't think they'd expected that at a Muggle hotel. Just a fib, but it made them take off fast." He opened the door to the storage room. "You all right, love?"

She nodded. "I don't think they'll be back to bother you. We... Draco and I, we've got the... the thing they're after. And we're taking it back to Britain."

His eyes narrowed, and she could see the alarm on his face though he tried to tamp it down. "Something, or someone? I had an encounter with a ghost named Charity in the kitchen, after they'd left. She seemed extremely upset. Lavender, what the hell is going on?"

"She's a ghost of a professor at Hogwarts," Lavender said. "With information about her death that they don't want made public." She looked around. Johnny's broom stood leaned in the corner, wrapped in rough fabric. She took her wand and unwound it quickly. "She's very sorry about your cooking stove, by the way."

"No problem. We've got an electrician coming this afternoon," Uncle Matthew said distractedly. He folded his arms across his chest, a very sceptical look on his face. "Maybe Flooing the Aurors wouldn't be such a bad idea," he said, watching her root around in the box beside the broom for two pairs of goggles, hats and gloves.

"They wouldn't hurt Draco, or me, I think. But Charity only feels safe going to Hogwarts, so that's where we're taking her." She quickly stuffed the equipment into her rucksack and grabbed Johnny's warm flying cloak and tucked it under her arm. It would have to go around both her and Draco. "We're one step ahead of them. But I really need to go now. Send on Draco's luggage with my things to Bristol, okay?"

"All right," he said with a frown. "Look, I'll be calling your mum to tell her that you're on your way back, and if I don't hear back from her tonight that you've arrived, we _will_ contact Aurors. Here, and in London. You can Floo from your home to Hogwarts, right?"

"Not into the school. But there's a place in Hogsmeade. I've got it figured out, I think." She told him, quickly, the route she had in mind.

"Set the course straight north until you're almost past the Cyclades," he advised. "Then slightly to the west onto the mainland. Athens will be plain to see, coming in from the air. You've been to the Portkey station, you should be able to Apparate straight there once you've landed. It's right at Piraeus harbour."

She flung her arms around him, and he caught her and hugged her warmly. "Good-bye, Uncle Matthew. Thanks for having me for so long. Say thanks and goodbye to the rest, too. I'll see you next summer..."

"Counting on it. Oh," he said, drawing back and pushing the two letters at her. "One for you. From Parvati, if I'm not mistaken. The other one, well, you'll see. I would like you to deliver it personally."

She bagged Parvati's without looking at it, feeling slightly sick to her stomach. As for the other, she glanced at it, and groaned. "Uncle Matthew! Do I have to?"

"It would better impress upon him the sincerity of the offer, I should think."

"And you're sure? I've told you—"

"Absolutely sure. Now scoot, poppet, if time is of the essence. Good luck, and godspeed."

She caught up with Draco and Charity right after, and they equipped themselves for the long ride with no further delay, plotting the course Uncle Matthew had suggested. The next three hours were some of the most frightening Lavender had experienced, but she clung with her arms around Draco's waist like... well, a barnacle, and they only took one small stop at a tiny isle to stretch their legs, before they were off again. They arrived at the Portkey station in Athens in late afternoon, cold and stiff from the ride, but glad to find that the scheduled evening Portkey to London left in thirty minutes and had places to spare. It gave them time to warm up slightly, use the loos and get a bite to eat before takeoff, which was at 6 p.m. and landed them at the London Portkey hub five minutes later. Outside the windows, sleet was drifting to the ground in pale, wet tatters in the twilight, and Lavender realised with a start that it was only four weeks till Christmas. In England, it really was winter.

She Apparated them to Bristol, to her parents' small, cosy flat, and clearly Uncle Matthew had prepared them well, because they didn't make any undue fuss about Draco, and her mother didn't protest too much when Lavender said they had to move straight on. Charity hovered by the Floo and gave Lavender an encouraging thumbs-up as she threw the green powder in, and Lavender smiled at her, stepped in and said loudly and clearly, "The Hog's Head, Hogsmeade!"

She tumbled out of Aberforth's Floo, brushing dust off herself, and stepped out of the way for Draco, who arrived right on her heels. Aberforth came up the stairs from the pub just as Draco stepped out.

"Thought I heard something," said Aberforth, eyeing Lavender dubiously. "Barnacle Brown, is that you?"

"Long journey," Lavender lamented. "Three hours on a broom for starters. I was very brave." She patted down her hair half-heartedly. Her comb and lipstick were at the bottom of her rucksack. There was no time for such things. Only one thing mattered now, so close, and she glanced up at the portrait over the fireplace. "Aberforth, is your passageway into the Room of Requirement still open?" 

He studied her incisively, eyebrows slightly raised. "That will, as always, depend on the clarity of your need."

"My need is probably the greatest," said Charity, appearing behind Aberforth. "Would it work for a ghost, you imagine?"

He spun around, his mouth falling open. For long seconds, he just stared at her, and finally he murmured, "Professor Burbage, as I live and breathe."

"As you can probably deduce, I no longer do either," said Charity. "But I really do need to talk to Minerva, and I understand this is the quickest route."

Draco cut through the conversation by stepping up and lifting away the portrait. Behind it, the familiar sight of the corridor opened up.

"Well," said Aberforth dryly, looking from one to the other of them, "it seems, at the least, as though young Mr Malfoy has a need." He took the portrait from Draco's hands and waved them inside. "Off you go, then. And you," he said, catching Lavender's gaze as she began to climb in, "come back here the same way and tell me the rest of the story. Drinks on the house."

***


	3. Chapter 3

"I hope she hasn't changed the password," Lavender said anxiously. "If so, you'll just have to go on ahead, Charity." She cleared her voice, staring at the gargoyle as if it were a living guard hellbent on stopping her. "Whiskers and herring!"

Draco raised an eyebrow, and Charity doubled up in laughter that had a marked tinge of nervousness about it, so close to her goal. "Oh, that's _so_ Minnie." They stepped onto the moving stairs behind the gargoyle, and were carried quickly, steadily up a floor.

Draco wouldn't soon forget the look on _Minnie's_ \- Minerva McGonagall's face when she saw the three of them standing in the doorway to her office. Her look of cool, polite anticipation, suggesting she'd been interrupted at work, unravelled in a split second, her hand darting to her lips in a gesture of stunned recognition.

"Charity?" she whispered. "Oh, my dear, is that you?"

"None other," said Charity gently, and waited until McGonagall mutely stepped aside before gliding into the room. Lavender and Draco followed, and Draco heard the door swing shut with a sound of finality.

No way back, now. At that moment the choice was taken out of his hands, lifted off his shoulders, and he felt nothing but pure, blessed relief.

"Lavender... Mr Malfoy." McGonagall said their names more as if to make a note of them to herself, than as a greeting. She made a distracted gesture toward the chairs opposite her desk, but didn't sit down herself. She remained standing, staring at her dead colleague, her voice thick with emotion when she spoke. "We've searched the country up and down for you, Charity. For any trace of what might have happened to you."

Charity gave a rueful shrug, raising her arms to the sides. "Nothing left to find but this, I'm afraid. I owe it to Draco, that he has brought me here. I couldn't have found my way on my own." She looked proudly at him, and at Lavender, too. "He and Miss Brown have been most astute, determined and courageous in their efforts to convey me to your door."

That was an extremely generous summary of his history with Charity, and Draco felt his ears go warm, both with the praise, which sounded heartfelt, and with the recognition that it was a highly misleading description of anything but the very last few days. Indeed, the look McGonagall gave him was non-committal.

Charity was glancing around her with interest. "Very different. But I like what you've done with the space, Minerva; I really do. It must have been hard, giving up your old office and quarters."

McGonagall looked like she balanced right on the edge between tears, laughter, and a shouting fit. "It was. It's starting to feel like home, finally. Charity—"

"I wonder," continued Charity, "if it wouldn't be best if I speak with you under four eyes. Do you have somewhere these two can catch their breath, meanwhile? They've had a long and stressful journey."

McGonagall nodded, and crossed the room to a door in the back. "You may wait in the lounge. Unless there's somewhere else you'd rather go? Please help yourself to tea and shortbread; you know where to find it, Lavender." 

They filed inside, and the soft hum of a privacy charm descended on the room they'd left. 

Draco looked around. The room was quite small, but comfortably furnished, comprising a dresser with tea-making amenities, bookshelves on every wall, and a red tartan couch and armchair on opposite sides of an elegant, gleaming coffee table on ornate legs. The window looked out onto the lake.

"This is where Minerva and I talked after I'd broken her nose," Lavender said, flopping down on the couch. Draco aimed for the armchair, but Lavender interrupted him. "Oi." She was patting the couch cushion beside her, and grinning at him. "I intend to rest my weary head on your broad shoulder. For that, I need your broad shoulder to be over here."

He snorted, and sank down beside her, an arm going around her when she promptly lay her head down on his shoulder according to her declared intent. She didn't stop with that, but toed off her shoes and swung her feet up onto the couch, her legs over his lap. "Well, we pulled it off," she said, looking up in his face.

"We did." He tugged her closer with his arm around her, liking the warmth of her against him, her drawn up knees resting against his midriff, her wind-tousled hair so soft against his jaw. Liking _her_. Liking that she'd commandeered his shoulder to rest on and had called it 'broad'. She was trusting, genuine, seemingly uncomplicated in so far as any woman could ever be. And yet he knew she had her own monsters under the bed, her own uncertainties about the future to grapple with, her own qualms about this journey home. She'd come with him, anyway. "You _were_ quite brave," he said, "on the broom ride."

She grinned tiredly. "Maybe I'll find out that it worked as exposure therapy. The second hour wasn't as scary as the first and the third was almost exciting. But it might be only because at that point I was too exhausted to notice I was afraid."

"You did well." 

"Mmm. Thanks." She raised a hand, brushing his hair back from his brow. "It's done, then. Still no regrets?"

"None, provided the Headmistress doesn't call in Aurors to march me straight to interrogations at the Ministry." Lavender looked distressed, and he made an apologetic grimace, regretting bringing it up. It made him pretty queasy to think of, anyway. "No, honestly, I'm prepared to face the music, if it comes to that. It's a long time coming. How she died, it haunted me... long before _she_ did." He swallowed hard under the feather light caress of her fingers, brushing his hair behind his ear, now. It sent distracting tingles down his nape, his spine. "Thanks for giving me a kick in the arse."

"It didn't take that much, Draco. More of a friendly nudge to your arse. You found your own courage," she said earnestly. "I think that's the only way it ever works."

He wasn't so sure how this would have happened without her around — perhaps not fast enough to help Charity before his parents got to her, anyway — but he wasn't eager to argue when her opinion was so clearly to his advantage. He sank back into the cushions and pillows, unable to quite suppress a wince. He was going to be feeling that broom-ride for some days. His entire body ached. "And you?" he asked into the silence between them, "Ready to face England?"

She let out a rather painful-sounding sigh. "I suppose I'll have to be. Grab the bull by the horns, like those kids at Knossos... Parvati and I are... were... going to open up a tea room with Divination services." The tale seemed to end there, but Draco waited patiently, and finally, she went on. "That is, she thinks we're going to. We've been planning it since we were thirteen. Have been putting aside money for it for the past three years. Parvati's got us a promise of a loan from her parents, for the rest."

"And?" he asked, wondering.

"Well... things changed, after the Battle. Obviously." That unconscious straying of her fingers to her cheek, again. "I was at St. Mungo's for weeks. It took time to heal. That is, my skin sort of did, pretty soon. But... it was like I had scars inside, too, that took much longer to heal. I had nightmares of Greyback coming at me; I woke crying from them every night. I always felt like people were staring at me. I went and re-did my seventh year, with Parvati, expected things to get better, but they only felt worse. And... somewhere in there, I've realised that I don't want to open a Divination tea room any longer. At first, it was because I wanted to hide myself away, not have a job where I had to talk to strangers all the time and face their reactions to me. But now... it's not really about that."

What was it she'd said, that night she'd discovered Charity in his hotel room? _"I've promised things that I can't deliver. And instead I want things I'm afraid to do."_ He tilted his face at her, caught her sad eyes. "What is it you're afraid to do?"

"Beyond telling Parvati that I'm jumping ship? Wrecking our dream?" She sighed, dropping her gaze. "I don't know, I..."

"You've got to know roughly what it is, to be scared of it," he pointed out.

"All right!" She sounded upset, all of a sudden. "If the Battle of Hogwarts had taken place at the full moon, everything would have been different! I would have been a Werewolf; I would have been shunned. And there are so many that Greyback and his pack hurt during the war. I escaped with a few scars, but there are plenty of people, plenty of kids that he turned, and it breaks my heart to think of. If I'd been turned, my family and friends would have helped me somehow get the Wolfsbane potion, but that thing is so indecently expensive, and there are people out there, kids out there, who face agony and terror every full moon!"

"Survivor's guilt?" he asked softly, surprised.

"No! I don't feel guilty for surviving!" She was almost shouting, suddenly, and he reached quickly for his wand and cast a discreet privacy charm of their own. "I did nothing wrong! I feel guilty because I'm doing nothing now! I should be fighting for free Wolfsbane potion every fucking month for every werewolf in Britain!"

Draco looked at her strangely. She was staring at him, sitting defensively braced in his arms, as if expecting him to laugh out loud at her, to tell her she was crazy to harbour such a thought — well, a dream, because that's what it sounded like. "Perhaps, if you're feeling that strongly about it, you should?" he said, reaching for her again and pulling her close in a gentling motion.

She seemed to kind of collapse against his chest, feeling smaller, more vulnerable. "But that's not me! I'm supposed to open a fun and pretty Divination tea room with Parvati! We've planned it since we were kids! And everyone would laugh at me. No one would take me seriously. I'm just a silly girl who cares about makeup and boys, right?"

"'Such a fucking silly, shallow thing'?" he asked, throwing her own words back at her, as he remembered them, anyway. "If you wouldn't take it from McGonagall, you shouldn't take it from yourself." He shook her gently. "Listen to yourself, damn it. Look at yourself. You're truly passionate about this. You have grit, you have courage, you have... you're all heart." Quoting Charity now, but Draco saw the truth in her words as plain as day and felt he could be forgiven for not citing his sources. He smirked at her. "Bit of a cheeky monkey, but all heart. There's nothing disqualifying about caring about makeup and boys. And for the record, I think you're bloody gorgeous. So if people should happen to stare at you, whether you work in a tea room or on the barricades for Werewolves' rights, that would no doubt be the reason."

She blinked up at him, surprise in her eyes, her cheeks red, and Draco smiled and cupped her cheek in his hand. It felt so warm to the touch, and she turned it into his palm with a kind of unthinking yearning that caused his breath to catch hard with a surge of protectiveness. But not the familiar kind that was tinged with guilt, that he'd felt for Pansy, or duty, that he'd felt toward his parents. Something that felt light and warm and no trouble at all. 

"Thanks," she whispered, that impish smile starting to appear on her face again. "And, um, I'm sorry for yelling. Today's the full moon. I get a very short fuse around that time."

"Yeah, you told me that first night, in the restaurant. You yelled at me, then, too." That was just two nights ago, he realised with a start. It somehow felt longer than that. These past days had been pretty insane. He didn't think he'd ever got to know someone that well, that fast before; certainly no one outside his safe Pureblood circle of friends.

"Do you... do you really think I should do it?"

He frowned. "I don't think you _should_ do anything, Brown. I think you _can_ do anything you want to do, and feel is right. Including this. After all," he reminded her, "don't forget what your enemies call you."

She laughed in surprised delight. "Very true. The Ministry has no idea what's coming at them."

"That's the spirit." She still seemed a bit subdued, no doubt still dreading the part of telling Patil that she was backing out of their shared project, but there seemed to be a new straightness to her spine, a hope in her eyes, faith that she might not be trading away the old dream for nothing. He didn't begrudge her the hope he saw in her eyes, felt proud that he'd had some part in putting it there, yet he felt an unexpected sting of envy, too. There'd never been any consideration for him to have a career, to do anything but learn to manage the family's estate and various funds. That was what Malfoys had done for generations, after all, hoarding Galleons and land and gaming the system. He'd never questioned it. He'd sat for his N.E.W.T.s, after the war, had passed them easily and then tried to forget about them, yet if he were honest, he had his secret dreams, too, as well as his fears of ridicule.

She seemed to catch on to something in his expression, tilting her head to the side as she studied him. "And you," she asked, "what are you doing, anyway, when you're not honeymooning on your own?"

And... the blasted thing was, Draco found he didn't want to tell Lavender Brown he was doing nothing of purpose with his life. So he told her something else instead. And then he braced like she'd done a minute before, regretting the impulse when he saw her eyebrows shoot up and her mouth fall open.

"Wait," she said when he turned away blushing and discomfited, caught his face in her hand and turned it back to her. Her initial astonishment was gone without a trace, replaced by curiosity and excitement. "I didn't mean to... Actually, I think you'd be amazing at it."

"Based on what?" he asked, feeling inordinately prickly. He didn't like being so transparent, and it was easy for her to say, after all. "A Malfoy, in such a job; it might be frowned upon, don't you think?" His parents would most certainly frown. It was almost a good enough argument in itself, to try it.

"Well, you're dashing," Lavender said. "That's the most important qualification, yeah? You should absolutely do it."

He looked at her carefully for signs of mockery. She was smiling at him, but she didn't sound, or look, as if she were making fun, or finding the idea hopeless. "It's true; I am."

She giggled. "Confidence is probably a requirement, too."

Deep down, Draco wasn't a hundred per cent certain how he fared in that department. "I have a healthy ego. Does that count?"

"I'll tell you a secret," she said. "From a bit of a distance, no one can tell the difference. And confidence comes with doing, doesn't it? I hope so, or _I_ 'm screwed."

She looked so... _sweet_ sitting there, smiling brightly at him, a whole brimming ocean of faith in her eyes, for herself and him. No, sweet wasn't the word he was looking for, not the one he was _really_ thinking. He was thinking of her grabbing his hand and dragging him into a clear blue lake full of invisible snakes and making him laugh about it, he was thinking of her teasing about flashing her tits at him and that wicked laughter in her eyes, and he was thinking, most of all, of her sitting astride his thighs in that hotel room in a pool of blue-green velvet and about the noises she'd made when he—

"Fuck, you're _adorable_ ," he muttered, leaned in and brushed his lips against hers. He was going for dashing, but probably only managed awkward, because their noses collided and aborted the kiss at once, and she giggled again, breathless, and this time he thought it really might be at his expense. But her arms slid around his neck and caught him safe and sure, mending any slight to his pride. And her lips, her mouth, were warm and soft and wet, her tongue sliding along his, and Draco pulled her more fully onto his lap and curved his hands around her hips and forgot, for a while, all about wayward ghosts and unbearably controlling parents, or the inconvenient fact that he was snogging Lavender Brown as if their lives depended on it in a room in Headmistress Minerva McGonagall's private quarters at Hogwarts.

***

When Charity had finished her account, seated in one of the big armchairs in Minerva's library, her old friend and colleague was silent for a while. She reached into her robes and drew forth a tartan hankie and dabbed at her eyes, and Charity sighed. "I very much wish I could give you a hug right now, Minerva, but we both know it would be dissatisfactory for me and unpleasant for you."

"I'm afraid so," said Minerva thickly and tucked the hankie away. "The feeling is mutual." She pulled herself together with a visible effort. "We've obviously feared the worst, Charity, after you disappeared without a trace. Your suffering was appalling, and indeed, this is exactly the kind of scenario my imagination has plagued me with since your disappearance. I am, however, extremely relieved that you managed to escape Malfoy Manor and make it safely here. You'll find a welcoming home here, as you know. I'll get the Floo line connected promptly so that the Ministry can send someone from the Spirit Division to help with the formal transferral of your attachment from the Manor — or Draco Malfoy, as the case might be — to Hogwarts. We should also ask for an Auror to take your statement, of course. And just in case the Malfoys are still at your heels, I suggest we do it sooner rather than later."

It was so like Minerva, to take refuge from strong emotion in brisk action, and Charity shook her head fondly. "Sit down a while longer, Minerva," she pleaded, as Minerva started to rise. "Surely I'm safer here, even unbound, than most places I could be, and... I'm not quite done."

With a look of surprise, Minerva sank back into her armchair again. "What's on your mind, Charity? Of course, if you need a bit of a rest first, that's understandable."

"I don't only need a bit of a rest. I feel like I need a long, long rest." Charity smiled unsurely, hoping so hard it hurt. "Preferably for eternity."

"Ah, Charity—" Minerva's lips turned down in a pained grimace. "You know better than that, my dear."

"No! Please, hear me out. I have an idea, you see." She was worried that she came across as desperate - well, she _felt_ desperate, now that the moment had come, and she'd find out if her hopes had been misplaced all along. "It's fear of death that traps a ghost in its existence, that's what I've always heard, what we teach the students. Ambivalence about the afterlife. You make that choice, and you are stuck with it. I know. But Minerva, for me, that wasn't the case. At the time of death, it came as a relief, as you can imagine. Yet I was almost at once seized by a... a horror at what I'd left behind. I think I knew the snake would have my body. I realised, at any rate, that no trace of me would ever be found. I'd suffered so, and was distraught that my fate would be buried and hidden, that there would be no justice for me or my family, that my poor parents would never get certainty about my death, that I would leave so many questions behind. And so, in a moment of despair, I turned. But it wasn't despair for death, or fear of the afterlife, not as such."

Minerva let out a soft breath. "That's... a fine distinction. And the question is not a new one. To the best of my knowledge, for a ghost who regrets their choice, no other way through has been found."

"But listen," Charity said eagerly, getting up and pacing the room. "I knew I had to limit my attachment to this existence, or eventually it would feel normal and even the will to shake it off would weaken. I kept a very low profile at the Malfoys' home, for that and other reasons, as I've already explained. I... couldn't quite keep myself from bonding with that unhappy boy, and indeed, saw that he might be my only chance of escape. But I've kept my direct engagement even with him to a minimum, until the past couple of days when I depended on his assistance to take me here." She gesticulated with her arms, encompassing the room and the school and all the strange, solid, incompatible world around it. "I could easily let all of this go, Minerva. I _yearn_ to pass on, yearn for my natural fate."

"It's hardly fair, I know," said Minerva quietly, sadly.

"I wonder," said Charity, stopping right in front of Minerva, clasping one hand nervously in the other, "if the Department of Mysteries might present a solution."

She'd caught Minerva by surprise; she sat back abruptly in her chair, her eyes widening behind her glasses, her brow frowning in thought. "Do you have anything particular in mind, Charity?" 

"Just something I heard, years ago," said Charity in a rush, "about a... contraption that, once one passed through it, had no return? A conveyor to death, the unknown, to whatever lies beyond?"

"A Veil?" asked Minerva, almost whispering.

Charity nodded eagerly. "Yes!"

"I see," Minerva said slowly. "Yes, I've heard of that, too. Sirius Black ended his life, falling through that Veil...Is that what you heard, too?" Charity nodded again, and Minerva let out her breath in a huff. "Would it work for a ghost? I wonder!"

"Has it been tried?" asked Charity.

"Who knows, with the Department of Mysteries? Of course, very few ghosts would wish to make the attempt." Minerva bit her lip, interest sharp in her eyes. "Hah. I do suspect that if it has _not_ been tried, they would very likely be ecstatic to have you volunteer. But Charity, have you really thought this through? Nobody knows for certain what lies beyond the Veil, for a ghost, or for a living woman. Or a man, for that matter."

"I'm willing to take the risk," said Charity steadily. "This ghostly existence feels rather glum to me, and I always used to be a very jolly kind of person. I feel that the odds are sufficiently in my favour, but I should seriously consider a strong advice against from an Unspeakable, I suppose." 

"I can tell you this," said Minerva. "After his death, Sirius Black appeared for Harry when he used the Resurrection Stone, along with his father, his mother, and Remus Lupin, who had just died in the Battle of Hogwarts."

"Oh," said Charity, with a sharp pang of sadness. "I so liked Professor Lupin."

"Yes, I did, too," said Minerva patiently, "but what I'm telling you is that it was possible to summon Sirius Black like the others, who'd died, well, regular deaths. Whether the Veil would work in that way for a ghost remains to be seen."

"Possibly only by me," said Charity with a wry smile, and Minerva smiled back, reluctantly.

"I'll ask for an Unspeakable, too, then? And of course an Auror."

"Now, listen, Minerva." Charity steeled herself, suspecting this wouldn't be popular. "I have changed my mind about all of that."

"All of what?" Minerva asked, frowning. 

"About wanting justice, and all of that."

"You must be joking," Minerva said, suddenly sounding extremely stern, and Charity shook her head adamantly.

"You can't make me."

"I bloody well know I can't make you! You're as obstinate as a Niffler with a diamond necklace! But what on earth is your reason for letting a dozen torturers and accomplices to murder off the hook?"

Minerva sounded upset, upset for _her_ , and Charity was determined not to get angry in turn. "I don't want to put Draco through another hearing. Those others, well, you told me some are in Azkaban, some died in Battle, and the Malfoys walked free, as usual — oh, well! It never was about vengeance for me, and at least I managed to give them a real fright, lately," she said with a chuckle. But she quickly fell serious, again. "Nor do I wish my old parents to know what an ordeal I went through before I died. All the details about torture and torment and giant snakes... what could it do but cause them distress? I was upset that no one would know or care what I went through, but it's faded with time, and now... Lavender cried for me. You did. Draco expressed deep remorse. And I know, now, that Severus had no choice, what _he_ must have suffered on my behalf. I'll be glad to give a witness account that I died from the Killing Curse, at Voldemort's hand. That's all. And it's the truth."

"Charity Ellen Burbage, for Godric's sake." Minerva half-rose from her chair, fingertips braced on the table. "Draco brought you here knowing full well what it might cost him, and that speaks in the young man's favour, I might add. But you - owe him - nothing!"

"Don't I?" she asked quietly, and watched Minerva sit back and let slip a very Scottish oath. "Right. I wouldn't be here, wouldn't have my chance at freedom, without him. And Lavender, too, by the way. She's got faith enough for a whole club of Cannons' supporters, that girl. Anyway, Draco never wanted to hurt me, and for what he had no fair chance to hinder, he has fully made amends. I know that. I've heard his nightmares. I've seen his despair. I am his ghost."

"I'm not sure I am convinced that I'd see it that way," Minerva said reluctantly.

"It is _my_ death," said Charity. She could be stern, too, on occasion. " _My_ suffering. _My_ privilege to accept or refuse amends."

Minerva held up her hands. "All right. I do see the point about your family. I should very happily see the boy's parents held to account, and all the rest of those bastards. But on your head be it."

"My head's more or less forfeit, anyway, Minerva. I went head first into that snake, you know." She shrugged apologetically at the grimace of dismay on her old colleague's face. "I'll go and get the kids, now, I think. They must be wondering what is going on."

She glided through the wall, and gave a yelp of contrition. "Oh, drat!" Her hand flew to her mouth. "I'm so sorry; I can't believe I did that a second time! Well, if you could — in Minerva's office — in, say, a minute or five?"

She hurried back, and met Minerva's gaze. Minerva's eyebrows had climbed close to her hairline, and Charity grinned. "They're just snogging," she whispered. "Holy Helga, Minnie, they're so cute."

"Cute, my foot," said Minerva dryly, fully recovered. "That girl broke my nose last spring, you know." 

***

It was a wistful goodbye with Charity. Lavender even stepped up, stubbornly, and gave her a tearful hug. It felt sort of formless and icy cold, and she stepped back with a shudder and a sheepish smile.

"I _know_ ," said Charity ruefully. "I appreciate the sentiment, though."

"We'll miss you," said Lavender, speaking both for herself and for Draco, and Charity shook her head and winked at him. 

"I'm not sure Draco will. Being haunted is a mixed pleasure at best. Isn't it, Draco?"

Draco flushed slightly with her teasing, but then just nodded with a helpless shrug. He still looked dazed and distracted by the revelation that Charity had decided to try to pass on without attempting to bring anyone to justice. Including him. 

"I could have tried to grab hold of you and Apparate sidelong somewhere safe with you," he blurted. "I had my wand, it might have worked. I was... too scared. Too scared to even think of it."

"Could have, might have..." She eyed him pensively. "Yes, I suppose, but there weren't a surplus of safe places in those days, and I never expected you to commit suicide on my behalf. Whatever's to forgive on my account, is forgiven, Draco. Now you'd better learn to forgive yourself."

"And my parents?" he asked harshly.

"That's between you, and them. I wish you all that's good and true in the world. That's all I can say." She let out a sigh, and glanced over her shoulder at the wizard standing by McGonagall's desk. "Now let's get ourselves free of each other, my dear, shall we?"

The wizard from the Spirit Division drew his wand and stepped up between Charity and Draco. The ritual was done in a few minutes, a few Incantations, an intricate slashing motion through the air with his wand. A sort of separation, or divorce rite, Lavender thought, and afterward, nothing seemed changed. 

"I don't feel anything different," Draco said uncertainly.

"I do," said Charity brightly, beaming at them. "Oh! I feel positively boundless! Thank you again, my dear. And thank _you_ ," she said to the wizard.

"No trouble, Professor Burbage. I'll write you up as staying here at Hogwarts, then?"

"We'll see," said McGonagall, her expression non-committal. "We're waiting for someone from the Auror department, and for Samuel Croaker from the Department of Mysteries to clarify a couple of questions." He nodded and left through the Floo, at the same time as Argus Filch popped his head in the door. "Oh, Argus! Could you please see if you can find Pomona and Filius and ask them to come here. We have.. a visitor, as you may see..."

She trailed off, watching with all of them as he stepped uncertainly forward and squinted at Charity's form before him. Lavender wasn't sure whether he saw anything as clearly as any of them did, but the stricken recognition in his expression was unmistakeable.

"Professor Burbage, ma'am..." His scowling face twisted, suddenly, and he was quickly up to his eyes with the back of his hand. "That's how it is, then," he said brusquely. "My... condolences, as it were."

"I'm afraid so, my friend," Charity said, her voice kind. "Thank you. I may not stay around here long, and I'd rather not that too many know I'm here. So I'll trust you to keep my secret, Mr Filch."

"That, you can." He stared at her a moment longer, then bowed respectfully and left.

Lavender looked after him, suddenly recalling her errand for Uncle Matthew.

"Thanks for the adventure," she said, stepping up to Charity and venturing another kiss on her cold cheek. "We'll hear if all went well, I hope. I'm _sure_ it will. I've never met any ghost less ghostly than you, Charity." She smiled, recalling the proper Greek for the occasion, one she'd heard from Eleni and Manouil and Niki often enough, when she'd been about to embark on the journey home. " _Kaló taksídi_ , Professor Burbage."

" _Evcharistó, Lévanta_ ," Charity said with a merry laugh. "It certainly has been an adventure."

They parted with that, Draco saying a formal good-bye to both Professors, and Lavender giving a friendly wave as she slipped out the door. She took off at a run after the man and cat walking down the corridor. "Mr Filch! Hang on a second?"

Argus Filch looked astonished and highly suspicious as he turned to face her. "What do you want, eh?"

Lavender rummaged in her rucksack while Draco's expression echoed Filch's astonishment. She drew out the two letters and put Parvati's back, then drew a reluctant Filch carefully aside with her hand on his sleeve, lowering her voice slightly, though Draco had remained at a respectful distance. "From my uncle," she said, holding the letter out to Filch. "Matthew Rowe. He chairs the annual European Squib conference in Rethymnon. And his hotel has discounts for British Squibs throughout the holiday season. I happened to mention you were caretaker at Hogwarts, and he told me to give you a personal invite. All costs and Portkey's included." Mr Filch was looking at her as if she'd gone mad, or turned into an angel before his eyes, or some combination of both. She glanced nervously down at Mrs Norris, who was sitting by Filch's feet and looking up at her with those bulging, glowing eyes. "Pets are accomodated, too!" she added reluctantly. Oh dear! At least Aris, Platon and Soks would be three against one.

Filch finally grabbed the letter, with the same possessive ferocity as if he'd confiscated some forbidden substance from a student. But his gaze wasn't hostile, just confused. "I'm no Squib, Miss. But... I have a friend as might be interested," he said gruffly, tucked the letter gently into his coat pocket, and shuffled on. Mrs Norris scrutinised Lavender over her shoulder as she followed.

"Well!" Lavender muttered, hooked her arm into Draco's and started the opposite way, heading for the stairs and the Room of Requirement. It hadn't gone too badly, really. Filch could have said thanks, but at least he hadn't exploded in fury and shouted at her. And... it had actually been a surprise to her, the way he'd reacted to seeing Charity, and Charity had called him her friend! Granted, that seemed like something Charity might do, but maybe Uncle Matthew knew what he was doing, after all.

"What was that?" Draco asked, and waved his hand when she started to explain. "I heard most of it, I think. But why Filch? What would they want that miserable git staying at their hotel for?"

"Uncle Matthew has a passionate commitment to the Squib cause," Lavender explained. "I told him about Filch, for a laugh really, but he got it into his head that he wanted to try to do something nice for him. He says I can't truly know how it is, to be born into our world without magic, and I reckon that's true."

"Yes, I guess," said Draco. It was clear that it was an issue he'd never pondered at length. Lavender didn't take any affront at that; she was all too aware that but for her uncle, she might not have given it much thought, either.

"He's just a good egg," she said proudly, as they started on the stairs up from the first floor, to seventh. "He has the Squib conference engagement; he works actively in a support organisation for the Muggle disease his first partner died from. He promotes the hotel specifically as LGBT friendly - lesbian, gay, bi, trans," she explained quickly as the acronym clearly wasn't known to Draco - "because, well, he's gay, he's a Squib, he knows what it's like living as a minority and trying to find a place in the larger community that knows too little and assumes too much about you and your life. He's my hero, you know? And a bloody sweet uncle, too."

Draco shook his head slowly, looking at her. "I don't know why you ever doubted your ability to work with issues beyond Divination and tea."

She felt herself flush under his gaze. His face had its familiar sardonic cast, and if it had been the old Draco, the one she'd barely known during their school years, she'd have assumed careless sarcasm, or a sneering taunt. But the old Draco was growing a fainter and less relevant memory superimposed by this living, breathing reality who'd assured her she had what it took to achieve what she wanted with her life, who'd knowingly taken a personal risk bringing Charity home to Hogwarts, who'd been a solid, safe warmth to hold on to on a long, scary broom ride and who'd kissed her and held her like she was something rare and precious just a few minutes ago.

The stairs shifted and blocked and helped and moved in their old patterns, and she and Draco navigated them with the surety of years of familiarity, laughing once as they rushed to the top and took a leap onto safe ground. Finally, they were up on the seventh floor, and turned left. Draco's arm felt warm and strong under the grip of her hand, and she felt that excited hum in her body again. She wondered if he felt it, too, and glanced longingly aside as they passed a broom cupboard where she'd got hot and heavy with Seamus back in their seventh year. She doubted that was Draco Malfoy's style. He'd dated Parkinson, and if anyone in their year had been more high maintenance, well, good grief.

They walked past the hidden entrance three times back and forth, passing the tapestry on the opposite wall. Lavender tried to think of how much she wanted a way out, and not how much she wanted to feel Draco's hands on her again, and slipped quickly inside when the door opened. 

It shut with a snick behind them, and then she heard Draco chuckle. 

The walls were close and tight. The room was dark, and when Lavender cast a _Lumos_ , she blushed as hard as Draco laughed. It was full of brooms, and other random dusty equipment, and more or less a conglomerate of all the broom cupboards in which she'd snogged Seamus and Ron.

"Shut up," she moaned. "I'll fix this."

"Don't, Brown; honestly I am flattered." He caught her hands in his own against his chest, still laughing. In the warm illumination of the _Lumos_ , his eyes seemed like silvery-gold light, dancing. "So you want to make out with me in a dusty broom cupboard, do you?"

"And what's wrong with dusty broom cupboards?" she asked, scowling.

"Nothing. It has novelty, I'll grant. And I suppose you're even more desperate for this than I am, since _I_ was imagining a big, luxurious four-poster with silk covers, and candlelight, and roses and champagne on the nightstand, and... oof—" His words died out in laughter as she threw herself at him, pressing her lips to his.

" _Did_ you?" she asked when she drew back for breath.

"Yes, but I was also trying to hold back because it felt terribly presumptuous, so—" He chuckled softly when she kissed him again, his hands twining into hers. "No? It wasn't too presumptuous?" He took charge of the kiss, then, with a passion that left her breathless and exhilarated, gathering both of her wrists in the grip of one hand and sliding his free hand down her back to her hip and lifting her up astride his thigh with a firm tug. 

"Draco," she gasped, relishing the firm pressure between her thighs and rocking down on it. She remembered this, the explosive determination of last night; she also remembered the hesitant reverence that had followed, before a ghost and an uncle had put an end to that. It was present now, too, that question in his eyes, in his voice, as he moved to kiss her ear.

"All right?" he murmured, and she nodded, feeling desperate and starting to sweat in the warm jumper and jeans. As if reading her thoughts, he let go his grip on her wrists and slipped both hands under the edge of her jumper and t-shirt, easing both up over her ribcage, her shoulders, carefully over her head. She did the same for him, impatiently, whimpering when he cupped a breast outside her bra, his thumb teasing over her nipple and making her knees buckle slightly with the pleasure that shimmered and seared through her body. His lips latched on at the base of her throat, sucking gently, his tongue laving the tender traces of her scars.

" _Oh,_ " she whispered, light-headed, her voice catching. She arched her back, pushing her breast into his hand. Desire thrummed and tightened low in her belly, and she felt so _good_ everywhere he touched her, she wanted this to never stop. With shaky hands, she fumbled and found the flies of his jeans taut over the hard line of his erection, her fingers mapping out the shape before starting to undo the buttons, and felt him shiver and go rigid.

"Fuck," he swore hoarsely, shakily, close to her ear. He applied both hands to opening her jeans, as well, more force than finesse, pushing at them until they were down past her bum, stopped by the fact she was still rocking herself rhytmically against his thigh. His hand slipped down the front of her knickers, fingers light through the soft curls, gliding into the warm wet and searching with a gentleness that made her quiver and whimper, made her melt. "God, Lavender," he whispered, and just her name breathed like that by Draco, Draco Malfoy, was so surreal and so sexy she could just die. He was studying her face in the faint light of her wand fallen to the floor, and his expression was taut and pained, almost stern in the spare light. "You're the hottest thing I've seen in my life."

He wasn't necessarily more skilled than the other boys she'd been with this way, but he was so intense, so into this, into _her_ , that alone made lust sweep her along in a hot rushing wave. His long fingers passed over her just so, over and over, a bit too hard, not exactly right, but it didn't matter, for she was swollen thick and wet and it was in rhythm with her breath and his breath and her frantic heart, and she took her hand from its distracted rubbing over his open flies and gripped his wrist, couldn't even think of making sure he enjoyed it because she had to make sure he didn't stop. "Yeah, like that, like that," she ordered in a whisper, pressing her forehead to his jaw, and the tension was tightening so exquisitely where he touched her, and she threw her head back with an eye-watering gasp and choked out a cry and _sneezed_ , repeatedly, as she came harder than she could remember doing in her entire life.

When she came back to herself, Draco was laughing helplessly but holding her safe and close, his hand still lodged between her thighs. "Bless you," he said.

Lavender groaned and put her hands over her face. She was still throbbing against his palm, lazy and slow, her hips hitching slightly with every little aftershock. "Oh _God_. I don't usually do that."

"Come?" he asked. "Or sneeze when you come?"

"Well, both, actually," she admitted recklessly, and saw him bite his lip on a smile. "I haven't actually done this a lot, all right?"

"Not me, either," he said, surprising her with the hushed confession, and finally slid his hand away from between her thighs. "And don't worry about the sneezing; I seem to have that effect on people lately. You're not developing an allergy to me, Brown, are you?"

"Nope." Lavender peeked over the tips of her fingers, and smiled and let her hands fall away to finish their work opening his flies, slipping down under the edge of his underpants to encounter the rough hairs on his belly and the smooth, damp head of his cock. "Beginner's luck, then?" she teased.

"Natural... raw talent," Draco countered with a scowl, leaning back against the rough wall, hissing softly with a small jerk that she felt through his entire body when she finally had his cock out and curled her fingers around it. "Didn't say I haven't ever, all right?" His cheeks seemed a bit darker and she wasn't sure if he were being truthful, or saving his pride with a white lie. She didn't mind, either way. She bent down for her wand and cast a charm to gave slickness to the friction, stuck the wand in her back pocket and pulled her hand to the tip of his length and back to the base, gently and then more firmly, and he was gasping now, bucking into her grip with surging motions and clutching at her hips. She liked his deep groan of pleasure, how he seemed not to manage to act blasé about this at all. How he seemed happy with this, just this, which sent a surge of gratitude through her, because oddly, though she strictly knew him better now than when they'd tumbled into bed at the hotel, it had somehow made her heart less inclined to rush things so. She saw his head resting in profile against the wall, how the tip of his tongue darted out to wet his lips as he breathed hard, and his sharp, pale face was so beautiful in the eerie shadows cast up from her wand, abandoned and familiar and strange at once. 

She slid her fingertips of her free hand up his flat stomach, his smooth chest, felt the flutter of pulse at his throat, and wound her arm around his neck and kissed him, and he came like that, shaking and moaning into her mouth, with her sucking softly on his tongue and his hand clamping over her hand and guiding it through the last slow strokes, slick and tight on his cock. 

She kept her hand cupping him softly, and nuzzled against his throat, feeling his heart beating hard, and hers almost keeping time, yet. They were quiet regaining their breaths and she had time to get a little nervous about what she'd _say_ , or he would say, when she felt his fingertips under her chin, raising her face so he could see her. "Not bad. But next time, we do it my way with a bed," he said firmly.

Next time! Lavender beamed at him, and then punched his chest half-heartedly. Not bad! "Yeah, it wasn't bad at all, Malfoy. I've had worse... possibly... I think." 

He smirked, took his wand and cast a couple of cleaning spells, and then he caught her face in his hands and kissed her. "Brown, just admit that no one's made you sneeze quite like that before."

"Well... I'll give you that," she said, grinning at him, and reached down and hitched up her knickers and jeans. He set about tucking himself in, too, and she bent down for their jumpers on the floor and handed his to him. Only then did she notice the mark on his arm. The swirling forms of the motif were only sinister suggestions in the half-dark. But the associations they evoked made her stomach feel cold for a second.

He noticed her noticing, too. His gaze cut to her and he went very still for a very short moment before he quickly slipped the jumper on. 

"Know what McGonagall said to me before I punched her nose? Just before that trite 'lucky to be alive' thing?" Lavender said, putting her jumper on, too, and finding him staring warily at her when her head emerged. She tugged down the jumper and lifted her hair out. "You've got to promise not to punch _my_ nose, before I say it."

He rolled his eyes, but she'd managed to draw forth a reluctant smirk. "I think I should be able to restrain myself."

"You can't escape your own skin, so you'd better make your peace with it." She shrugged. "Kind of brutal, yeah?"

"Kind of," he agreed. 

"She wasn't wrong, though. And, much as I hate to admit it, not about being lucky to be alive, either," Lavender said, grinning at him. 

Draco let out his breath in a huff and shook his head with a smile, taking her offered hand as she reached for her wand. "Perhaps not entirely wrong, no."

***

Lavender didn't seem eager to stop by the Hog's Head after the interlude in the Room of Requirement, and they ended up simply walking down the path to the castle gates, his arm slung around Lavender's shoulders and hers around his waist in a steady drizzle of rain. Gravel crunched and small twigs broke under their feet, and the smell of wet pine and moss was fresh, sharp green in the air. The forest was dark beside the path, and full of the suckling, drinking sounds of rain, but an umbrella charm hovered over them, and it felt companionable underneath it, warmth in her arm wound around him and light in the smiles she occasionally shot up at him.

"You're going home, then?" she asked softly, when the entrance came into sight down the path, restored to its former glory after the war though still a bit worse for wear along the adjoining stone walls. "Will it be... all right?" She meant 'safe', he thought, and fought down a bristling response. He couldn't blame others for not getting his family; at the moment he barely did, himself.

"It will be fine." He considered his words, and shook his head. "Actually, it will probably be miserable or awful, depending on whether my father is there, but they'll be relieved at the outcome once they've finished scolding me and start listening to what I say. Anyway, I'll just be packing a bag and heading out again, I think. Greg or Pansy will put me up for a few days. I don't know all that I'll do, but I do know that I want out of that house. I need at the very least an extended break from it. It's... too many..."

"Monsters under the bed," she suggested, and he gave a jerky nod.

"Yeah. Far too many." In every corner, slithering along corridors, prowling down stairs. It felt so fucking liberating, the thought of simply walking out of there. Why hadn't it ever occurred to him before that there was an actual way out? His parents wouldn't be happy about him moving out, having just converted the upper floor to private quarters for him and Tracey, but they didn't have much of a say in the matter. He'd had control of his own trust fund, his grandparents' inheritance, since he was seventeen. The monthly yield wasn't enormous, but it was probably a fair-sized sum by most people's standards. "And you?" he asked into the silence. "Going straight home?"

"Yeah...my Mum will be calling the Aurors and the Hit Wizards and possibly the Minister of Magic himself if I don't go home tonight." She grinned, but quickly sobered. "I'll just pop by Parvati's first, if she's home. She's said I can have the other room in her flat; Padma is studying in India this year. We'll see how it all works out. _Oh_." Clearly, something had occurred to her. She stopped there, right before the gate, and turned her back to him, gesturing to her rucksack. "There's a letter in there; take it out for me?"

Puzzled, he opened the flap of the small rucksack, and rummaged until his fingers met parchment. He handed her the letter silently and cast a _Lumos_ for her while she tore the envelope open and gingerly pulled the letter inside it a couple of inches out.

" _'Lavender, you silly twit_ ," she read in a whisper, eyes going wide and filling with tears. Swallowing hard, she packed the letter back inside and handed it back to him. "It can wait."

"Hey, come on..." That didn't really sound so bad, did it? Well, it might be, but there might be a different interpretation, Draco thought. Or maybe that was just the Slytherin in him talking; they tended to express their affection in insults, but he had a hunch. He pulled the letter out again. "Come on. How bad can it be? At worst, she'll be pissed off for a while. You can cry on my shoulder afterwards, if you need to."

She took a shaky breath. "You read it to me, then!"

"Sure?" Eyebrows raised, Draco figured that he couldn't refuse her. She'd done more for him than that, over the past few days. Clearing his voice, he tried to keep his delivery straight reading the predictably girly missive.

" _Lavender, you silly twit,_

_Don't you think I notice when you're holding back on me and avoiding every question I ask? We've shared everything, for almost half our lives, and while I don't know what's going through your mind, I do know that it's definitely not a tea shop in Hogsmeade! And that's all right! Just talk to me, we'll figure it out. I know you've been through a lot, and I love you, will you please not forget that? _

_Love,_

_Parvati xoxo_ " 

So far, so good. He'd read it conscientously, attempting to convey every exclamation mark, underlining, x, and o, and Lavender was looking massively cheered up; she actually threw her arms out and twirled beside him, veering out from under the umbrella charm in a giddy little dance. He laughed and reeled her in. "Wait, what's this? _'P.S. Draco Malfoy! Are you out of your bleeding mind?'_" He grinned when she made a grab at the letter, and held it at arm's length. " _'All right, I agree, he's fit and all, but that arrogant shit will only break your heart. (If he's gay, all the better!) At best, ride him like a Firebolt and get off as quick as you can! Love, P xoxo'_"

"Ugh," said Lavender. Her face had gone very pink in a way that Draco couldn't help but find enormously appealing.

"Hmm. That 'get off' is pretty ambiguous, or is it just me?" he said, holding the letter still out of her reach so he could re-read the postscript. "By the way, I'm heterosexual; sorry for not mentioning it earlier."

She scowled. "Well, you checked into the _Andromeda_ , what was I supposed to think?"

"I'm fit though, I'll hand you that."

"And an arrogant shit, too," she sighed, made a jumping leap and managed to tear the letter from his hand. She stuffed it in her pocket, but her embarrassment couldn't dampen her spirit for long. There was wonder in her eyes, even a fresh sheen of tears. "She's the best friend in the entire world!"

"Weight off your shoulders?" he asked quietly, and pushed the gate up so they could inch through. 

"And how." She sighed, looking around where they were standing. The train station could be glimpsed through the trees, and the path fell away towards Hogsmeade along the lake. "Strange how this still feels like home, isn't it?" she asked. "Feels like we're just heading off for a Hogsmeade weekend trip. Or catching the Hogwarts Express back for the holidays."

"I know." It did, kind of, and Draco was oddly reluctant to leave. Well, not so oddly, after all. He wasn't looking forward to the confrontation with his parents, though it would be preferable to the stomach-ache of waiting for them to find him.

But the fact was that he wasn't eager to leave _her_ , looking into those mesmeric hazel-fire eyes of hers, that maybe-shy, maybe wry little smile playing around her pressed-together lips. He couldn't claim he always understood her, yet everything seemed... so simple with her, and he thought it was because compared to the bloody mess he was trying to find a decent way out of, she was starting from a place of honour. That alone seemed to make things far less complicated. Note to self, he thought sardonically.

"Well, good luck, then, Draco..." She stood on tip-toe and pressed a quick kiss just at the corner of his mouth, and at the warm, diffident touch he was engulfed by a wave of protest that ached in his chest. 

He caught her by the elbows, holding her there. "I'm going to miss you," he burst out, and bit his lip, almost scowling at the impulsive admission.

She laughed and tilted her chin up. "Ah, now it's you, forgetting what my enemies call me."

"Barnacle Brown." He had to laugh, as well; it was irresistible. "I'd rather not be your enemy, though. That sounds scary. I suppose you have little reason yet to think of me as anything but — well, an 'arrogant shit' is likely apt. But... I am truly attempting to better myself."

She was regarding him with an enigmatic smile, distractedly winding a long strand of her hair around a finger. "I guess I'll have to admit, then, that some of my friends call me that, too. I may have thought of you as an arrogant shit, before, but that's not what I see, now. And you'd better not have been just sweet-talking me, mister, with those smooth words about next time in a bed."

"No, I wasn't." Those words had taken him by surprise, an impulse in response to the uncertainty he'd felt in her, the way this brazen girl had suddenly been pressing her warm face against his throat. They hadn't been carefully thought through at all, but he didn't regret saying them; quite the contrary, especially if she considered them smooth. Still, he thought that moving a bit slower from here on might be a good idea. "I'll just call you Lavender, I think. I'll try not to forget it again."

"I'm counting on that," she said. He had no time to respond before she stepped back with an absolutely heart-turning smile and a jaunty little wave, and Apparated away.

Draco steeled himself, gripped his wand and Apparated to the Manor's front steps.

***

He found her in the drawing-room, curled up in a chair by the fireplace. Bull by the horns, all right. He leaned against the door-jamb, still reluctant to venture further into this particular room. When the day came that he'd inherit this place, he'd have it re-built entirely, he'd long since decided. "Where's Father?"

"Draco!" His mother looked up anxiously, and got to her feet, scrutinising him, such alarmed concern in her eyes that some resistance in him unwillingly thawed. "We've been trying to find you... why weren't you at the guest house in Chania, dear?"

"You know where I was," he said quietly. "Where's Father?"

He could see her swallow. Her hands were clasped so tight it looked painful. "He's at the Ministry... We thought you might go there." She shook her head slowly. "Oh, Draco, what have you done?"

And at that fearful dismay, he found his defences were smashed, again. How he'd relied on her unruffled, cool tenderness through the years. Not least, through the two years when everything in his world had unravelled. It was no triumph to see her like this. It made his heart hurt. No one on this planet loved him as much as this woman did. He suspected that no one ever would. And he loved her, too; hell, he did love them both, imperfect as they were, destructive and self-serving as so many of their choices had been.

"It's all right, Mother. We... I brought Professor Burbage's ghost to McGonagall at Hogwarts, tonight." Her hand flew to her chest, and he shook his head. "She's foregoing pressing any charges," he explained tiredly. "She only wants peace. She'll make a statement that Voldemort took her life with the Killing Curse. Only that."

"Don't say his name," she said sharply, before glancing away, wary relief mildening her features as she took in his words. "Are you certain? She could always change her mind."

"That's not how it looked to me."

She took a deep, quiet breath, seeming to gather herself. "Well!" she said, and straightened herself. "She's told the truth, then."

Draco laughed, feeling anger rise in him after all. "I suppose one could call it that!"

"It is, and don't you forget it!" Her face was set in stubbornness, her voice cool.

"And what about the _Crucio_ s cast?" he asked viciously. "What about the fact that we were a dozen people around the table, and not one of us tried to intervene on her behalf?"

She laughed too, then, a high, brief sound of utter disbelief. "You know very well that anyone who had tried anything so insane would have been signing their own death warrant! And my God, Draco, you were by far the youngest there; you can't blame yourself!"

His jaw clenched. "Yes. But that doesn't change the fact that we sat there, complicit to murder. That Father took part in her torture. That I would, if I'd been able." It was the truth, so help him.

"We had no choice but to follow the Dark Lord's orders," she snapped back.

"Don't call him that!" Draco shouted, and she gaped at him. "Don't dignify a monster with a king's title, damn you! Why should he keep his power even after he's dead and gone?" He banged his fist against the door jamb. "If he'd had no followers, if people like my father had not supported his loathsome ideas, enabled by people like you... if everyone who feared him, like me, had defied him, he couldn't have achieved what he did. And _that_ is the truth!"

She stared at him a long moment, blankly, as if not properly understanding what she was seeing. "If so, you would have been dead, Draco." Her shoulders sank in some sort of defeat. "We would all be dead."

"Many people died. The best, I suspect." He stepped into the room at last. The ghost was gone, after all. It was only the ugliness of the deed that remained behind. He decided he'd had all he could stand of this particular argument. "I met Theo. And Tracey. They were in Chania, too."

She curled her hands into fists at her side. "You had no obligation to do that."

He shrugged. "We needed to talk. It was fine."

"The gall of that boy," she said coldly. "Wreaking such damage on a close friend's name. And her! Well, the less said, the better. We've been in contact with her parents, and they're at a complete loss. She's intractable."

"So am I. And I wish them both all the joy in the world," said Draco, and meant it.

"Draco." She sighed, fondness and exasperation in her gaze, subtly replaced by something that it seemed vulgar to identify as calculation on such a refined face. Yet he did, anyway. He knew his mother. "I've talked with Cara Bulstrode. Millicent hasn't got any... attachments, as yet. I know she's not pretty like Tracey, but—"

Temper flashed through him once more as he realized what she was up to. Again, already. "Millie's all right," he snapped. "You don't have to defend her to me. She's a good friend."

"Well, then—" She seemed taken aback by his response, and faltered. "They're a very solid Pureblood family, and came through the war with their name more unscathed than most. It would be... helpful for you, dear, for our standing — and if you like her—"

"I'm not doing that to another girl," Draco said swiftly. "Nor to myself. I am going to marry when _I_ decide, to a girl _I_ want. A girl I'm crazy about, and who's crazy about me. And besides, Cara Bulstrode may be as mistaken about her daughter's lack of attachment as Tracey's mother was about hers. Has that occurred to you?" Hell, Millie had been seeing that MacDougal girl from Ravenclaw for several months, if he wasn't mistaken, but he wasn't about to out her to his mother.

His mother grimaced, a chagrined look in her eyes. "Darling, I brought this up too soon."

"No. It's perfect that you brought it up now, so that we can get this out of the way."

"What has got _into_ you, Draco?" She stared at him a moment, and then suspicion crept into her voice. "We," she said. "What did you mean by 'we'?"

"What?" he asked, though he already knew, suppressing a belated groan at his slip of the tongue. Still, he made an effort. "You and I, of course, we can get this out of the way."

"What you started to say was ' _We_ brought Professor Burbage to McGonagall'. So by whom, exactly, were you accompanied on this... furtive journey to Hogwarts?"

Draco had no poker face vis-a-vis his mother, and knew better than to be evasive when her grammar got as sharply precise as that. "An old schoolmate I happened to meet in Rethymnon. She's been living there a few months."

"She?" His mother's voice was steel, of a sudden. "Is she a good Pureblood girl?"

"She's very good," Draco said, and almost added 'in a broom cupboard'. But he bit his tongue, no matter that Lavender would no doubt have laughed her head off at his childish, rebellious impulse. "She had a brush with Greyback during the Battle of Hogwarts, and now she wants to help people who he turned during the war. That's... good, don't you think?"

"Oh, dear!" Her elegant fingers flew to the column of her throat. He'd managed to unsettle his mother twice in one conversation. That didn't happen too often. In fact, she didn't seem so glacially perfect any longer. She looked most human, looked her age and then some, looked... quietly wretched. He wondered if it were the mention of Greyback that had stopped her in her tracks. The memory of the monster prowling through their hall, leering at anyone who chanced to meet his eyes, threatening her son.

"I love you, Mother. But I won't need any more..." he hesitated -"helpfulness, as regards my love life. I assure you I can handle myself."

Unhappy silence was followed by a short burst of tense laughter. "Well! I can hear that you have made up your mind."

"I have. Also, I am going to get a job. I'm going to have a career."

" _That_... isn't necessarily something I oppose... of course, you should consider your options carefully." She shook her head. "What's got into you?" she asked again, sounding simply curious this time.

"I woke up," Draco said slowly. "Don't be too upset with me, Mother? I hate it when you are."

She pursed her lips on an exasperated little smile. "Oh, love, you are so much your father's son."

He had another sharp retort on his tongue, but it withered there, and he offered her a small smirk of concession. It was true, after all. He was his father's son. He was not his father. 

And knowing that had to be enough. 

He started toward the door, and heard her tense voice behind him. "He'll be home soon. He's feeling fairly hurt, you know. An apology would not go amiss."

Draco stopped. "I'll think about it. But right now, I'm packing a few things and moving out." He turned and continued before she could reply. "I'll be kipping on Greg's couch until I can find a flat somewhere. I don't have to explain to you why I need a break from this house, do I?"

There was sufficient of a plea and of anger in his tone to make her voice falter on what she'd been about to say.

"But this is your home, Draco!" she whispered. "It's been the Malfoys' seat for centuries. We can't let that... that monster... ruin that."

"I'd like it to be my home again some day. But I — need — time," he said, with emphasis on every word. "It's hardly unusual for someone my age to move out of their parents' place."

She dropped her gaze, and then looked up at him in abrupt, dismayed accusation. "You chose that Rethymnon hotel because of the name, didn't you?"

It came so out of the blue, and the fact that he'd been angling for exactly such a reaction when he booked the hotel almost made him laugh, but in the end, he felt a stab of guilt for that, too. He shook his head and said curtly, "Coincidence."

***

"Are you all right, Professor Burbage?" asked the senior of the four Unspeakables who had accompanied her into the dark, square chamber. Three of them kept at a respectful distance, having seated themselves on the tiered steps leading down to the pit with its dais in the middle. But this one, tall, balding, with sombre eyes, had followed her as she glided to look up at the Veil, at the black tatters fluttering and moving as if breathed on by a restless wind.

"I am, Mr Croaker," she said. "What... what are the murmurs behind it?" They sounded near yet distant, close enough to evoke a strange familiarity, distant enough that she couldn't hear words or recognise distinct voices.

"The short answer is that we don't know," he said simply. "We do know that people who have suffered loss of loved ones are far more likely to hear them." He looked at her closely, as if trying to gauge her thoughts. "You may stop this at any moment, should you wish to return to Hogwarts with the Headmistress."

Charity shook her head firmly. She'd said her farewells to Minerva, Filius and Pomona in the Entrance Chamber of the department. They hadn't requested following her here to the last — she had made her wishes clear. They were her dearest colleagues, and she felt loved and respected by their presence, but here, in this room, she needed to have nothing that tugged on her to stay. She had decided against alerting her family to her existence at all. If this effort failed, well, then there would be more than enough time for that.

For all that she had spent much of her time as a ghost hidden away in protest, in denial and fear, she had relished the brief time spent with Draco and Lavender in Crete. It had reminded her of being young and questioning, of being footloose and free, of far-off places she had explored and people she had met and journeys she had undertaken. She was grateful for that last gift from a life she had loved and lived to the fullest, but there was only one journey left to be made now, one where no companions could follow and no maps were needed.

"How does this work?" she asked, glancing up, and Saul Croaker smiled gently. She found him a soothing presence. His eyes, while serious, were kind; the lines around them revealed that he did know how to laugh, under different circumstances. 

"If this works for you, it will be the simplest thing in the world. If it doesn't... well, I assume that you'll find yourself on the other side of it, still in this room, and in that case we shall escort you back to your old colleagues as agreed upon. You don't need to attempt to stay focused, or to concentrate on any particular task. It makes no difference if you are nervous, or distracted. The Veil is what it is. If it accepts you, this is where we part ways. But please, take the time you need."

He took a step back but remained close behind her, quiet and steady, and she looked up at the Veil again for a long time, until she barely knew he was there. She was nervous, yes, in case this last resort failed her, but she wasn't panicked at the thought like she had been before those two lovely young people had taken her back to Hogwarts. She was aware of bracing herself for that possibility, but most of all she felt an enormous swell of hope. 

She glided on that swell, up off the floor, up to the Veil, heard the whispers grow in strength and closeness. She imagined she recognised some, so achingly familiar, and it filled her with a fierce and heavy longing to see their faces and say their names. 

And she grabbed the bull by the horns and swung herself over, leapt like the blue dolphins at Knossos on a sun-drenched white wave, and knew as she felt the wave lift her that it was bringing her forward and onward, along on a journey that was always and endless and _yes_

***

He spent a week on Greg's couch, the next week at Pansy's, then moved into a cold, spare bedroom at the Nott estate when Theo and Tracey came home from abroad. It should have been awkward, perhaps, but he got on with Tracey better than he'd ever have dreamed. Still, he diligently scoured the Sell/Rent Property section of the _Prophet_ each day to make sure he wouldn't outstay his welcome.

He did a few more things.

He wrote to Katie Bell and apologised for his actions that had led to her spending months in a coma in her seventh year. He did it honestly but without much hope, and indeed, the owl returned so quickly it could barely have been inside her house, with the words 'FUCK OFF' scrawled angrily on the outside of the envelope.

He turned up at the Three Broomsticks late on a weeknight when business was at low peak. Madam Rosmerta flashed him a look when she first spotted him that made him seriously consider turning straight around and walking out the door. In the end, he walked up to the counter and apologised, trying to ignore the few customers still around who were eaves-dropping eagerly. He half expected to get a pint of Butterbeer thrown at him. Instead, what he got was a clipped, upset torrent of words, and then her turned back as she served another customer, and then she hailed him as he was about to leave and made his cheeks burn as she called out that she appreciated he'd had the nerve to come there and say it to her face.

And then she asked if she could get him something to drink.

He took two broomstick rides into Somerset before he mustered the courage, on the third try, to walk up the gravel path through a well-tended garden and ring the front door bell of a period coach house on the outskirts of Glastonbury.

The woman who opened the door had his eyes immediately widening, his heart damn near stopping in his chest. Just a second or two, and then the differences began to sink in. The lighter brown hair, the softer, warmer eyes, that were regarding him with nearly as great an astonishment as his own, but recovered more quickly. From inside the house came the sounds of a very small child, playing.

"You sent me an invitation to come visit you," he said, his mouth feeling dry, his heart racing so fast it felt painful.

She studied him quietly. "A year ago."

"Is it too late?"

With a small, but genuine smile, she opened the door fully, stepping aside. "No, Draco. Teddy and I would love to have you."

And a week after his apology to Bell misfired, she sent him another answer. _"I don't know if I can forgive you. Time will tell. But thanks for the apology, all the same. I appreciate it. Katie Bell."_

And also, of course, he did a few things with Lavender.

***

The weeks before Christmas always whooshed by like a crazed north wind, Lavender felt, but this year's December had been particularly busy.

She moved in with Parvati in her small Hogsmeade flat the week after she'd arrived home. They'd exchanged one long, tearful, emotional look before falling into one another's arms laughing their heads off, and Lavender couldn't believe that she had been so worried about how Parvati would take her change of plans.

But of course, Parvati hadn't been the real hurdle.

It took more courage than Lavender knew she owned to go to the Ministry, take the lift up to the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, and ask around until she could peek her head into the small office that Hermione shared with two other junior employees. Hermione, of all people! She could just imagine how uncomfortable Ron would be if he knew, and the thought had been amusing enough to inject her with a little more confidence than she'd known she had. And Hermione didn't laugh or sneer at her at all. She was delighted and excited by her idea, interested in hearing her thoughts and had useful tips about where to start. Most helpfully of all, she advised Lavender to call on their former teacher Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank, revealing that she'd worked in the Werewolf Support Services for several years before the section had been closed down. Willa turned out to be incredibly generous with her time, and also sent a letter of recommendation to Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minister of Magic, who as it happened was already taking steps to re-open the section.

And the end of all that, or the beginning, perhaps, was that Lavender was now the newest signed-on trainee in the department, with Willa as her mentor. It was exciting and scary at once, a bit like the broomstick ride with Draco had been, but she was determined to cling to this stick, too, like a barnacle, and use the opportunity for all it was worth.

Given all that had happened, she hadn't had many opportunities to meet up with Draco, but she'd owled him when his suitcase had been sent on from the _Andromeda_ , and when Draco had turned up to collect it, he'd accepted an invitation to take tea with Lavender and her parents, and that had been quite lovely, if a bit awkward as such meetings were no doubt bound to be. And he'd seemed to have squared things with his own parents, after a fashion. She didn't ask too much about that. She wasn't sure she could properly understand it, and maybe no one really could except the three people involved.

The week after, they'd met up for lunch at the Leaky Cauldron. Sadly, that hadn't been conducive to much more than outrageous flirting. He'd spent some nights on Greg's couch, then on Pansy's, and was now on to Theo's, and she'd been in the middle of getting her stuff moved in with Parvati. But the truth was, perhaps, that they both felt like slowing things down a notch after the frantic start. Their next meet-up had been to a Muggle cinema in Bristol, laughing at the improbable antics of James Bond, aka double-oh-seven. Lavender had been very glad that Draco had some Muggle experience now, so that she didn't have to explain to him that not all Muggles carried on like that. They'd sat in the dark holding hands, occasionally snogging a bit, and it had been rather brilliant. 

A couple of days before Christmas, Lavender opened the front door of the flat to find Draco on her doorstep, with snow on his silvery fur cap and his black woolen robes, cradling something very long, very narrow and very festively wrapped in the crook of his arm. At first scrutiny of the package, she had a hard time holding back giggles... and a swoop in her stomach, not all because he looked impossibly attractive standing there with snow melting on his distinctive pointed nose.

But that, too. She found herself thinking of him more, not less, as the weeks went by. For some reason she didn't want to be the barnacle when it came to this. She wanted him to come freely to her. She wanted Draco to miss her, when she wasn't around, like she missed him. 

"Merry Christmas," said Draco, meeting her withheld giggles with a raised eyebrow. He leaned the long package against the door jamb, stepped forward and pulled her into an exuberant hug. She barely had time to soften against him before he stepped back. "What was that for?" he asked with a challenge in his voice.

"What was...? _You_ hugged _me_!" Lavender looked up at him, fairly indignant, and found him smirking. 

"Yeah, right. Prove it." He reached out an arm, wound it behind her waist, pulled her close, and kissed her, firmly, passionately, his lips moving over hers and his tongue sliding inside her mouth and making warmth swell between her thighs and a joyful warmth expand in her chest. 

He looked down in her eyes, his own crinkled with a smile. "I suppose you're going to claim I was kissing you, too."

She burst out laughing. "What's got into you, Draco?"

"It's snowing," he said, leaned back and caught a snow-flake on his tongue which he proceeded to share with her in another long kiss. "It's almost Christmas. It's the full moon, did you know? So, pre-emptively, please don't yell at me if you don't like your present." 

Wow, she'd actually forgotten that it was that time of the month, that was how busy she had been. And that might be a good sign, if she were honest. "I think I can promise you that I'll like it. But... I might need some very gentle refresher lessons."

"Are you saying you have guessed what it is?" His expression was of shocked dismay, but he was laughing as he pulled her in for yet another hug, and she laughed, too, breathing in the scent of snow and damp wool and the crisp citrus and woods of his cologne. 

" _You_ are in a good mood today," she murmured.

"I have reason to be." A grin spread on his face, more relaxed than she could ever recall seeing him. Well, out of a broom cupboard, at any rate. "For one thing, I've finally got a place of my own. The flat on the top floor over Scrivenshaft's was advertised for rent this week, and I managed to snatch it up. And for another, I have tickets for the New Year's game. Pride of Portree against the Falcons." He pulled two tickets out of his pocket and waved them in the air. "I should say they're a present from Theo; he and Tracey are coming too. I hope you don't mind. Like a double date?"

"I would love to!" she said, delighted. "Nah, I don't mind. As long as Tracey has forgiven me for accusing Theodore of snitching on you, back then."

"You've been forgiven on grounds of the high-stress situation, I believe." He pocketed the tickets again, then nodded to the package. "Going to open it?"

"Can I? It's not quite Christmas yet."

"Close enough." He looked both worried and eager for her to open it, in fact; he stuck his hands in his pockets and watched, biting his lower lip as she took her wand and carefully tore the paper away.

She stared, laughter fighting with tears from the tight, warm feeling in her chest as the gift gradually emerged. A broomstick, yes, but what a broomstick! A sturdy, yet sleek, baby pink Nimbus, with a flared handle patterned with flowering vines and long, matching bristles in pink and sky blue.

Draco shuffled his feet and cleared his voice. "I ordered it, custom-made, after we got back. It's got the best Stabilising and Cushioning Charms on the market. I just... I reckoned you might be missing that little bike you were so fond of. It gave you a sense of freedom, you said, and... well, that's an important thing to have..." He faltered, and raised his hand to catch a tear off her lashes with his gloved thumb. "I hope I didn't misjudge that entirely," he said, starting to look slightly alarmed. "I know flying makes you anxious, but—"

She kissed him and stopped the nervous babbling. When they emerged for air, Draco was smiling again, looking relieved. "Yeah? Happy?"

"I think that may be the sweetest gift anyone's given me, ever," she said fiercely, wiping at her eyes with the backs of her hands and then giggling up at him. "Sorry. I'm just one of those emotional, girly types."

"That hasn't escaped my notice," Draco said with a tolerant smirk. "And yes, of course lessons are included. I'd be very glad to help you get more comfortable flying... In fact, I'd hoped that perhaps we could take a short practice flight to initiate it tonight?"

"Brill!" said Lavender happily. "Come in and wait. I need to bundle up, and I've got something to show you, besides." She detoured to the kitchen, and came back with an envelope that had arrived in the mail the day before, pulling out the picture to show him. It was of Mrs Norris in the basket in the reception of the _Andromeda_ , barely cracking a yellow eye open, with Aris, Soks and Platon sleeping tucked in around her like little piebald pom-poms.

Draco shook his head. "So he did end up going," he marvelled.

"Yup. Can't wait to get the whole story," Lavender laughed, and was on her way up the stairs when Draco stopped her with a hand around hers.

"There's one more thing."

The look in his eyes was hard to read, and she paused and gazed up at him. "One more... happy-making thing?" she asked warily.

He nodded sharply, a flustered smile brightening his face. "I... well, I wrote to the Head of the Auror Office, and was called in for a talk." He held up a hand, stopping her excited exclamation. "It's nothing given; I'll have to wait until next autumn's training begins and I'll obviously have to apply in the regular way. It's a tight squeeze, getting in. But he did say that given my age, and... other mitigating circumstances, whatever they may be... my war record won't be held against me. I'll be considered on equal footing with any other applicant. I'm going to work hard on brushing up my skills, until then."

"Oh, Draco." She stood still at the bottom of the stairs, taking him in. His expression was determined, but the line of his shoulders looked relaxed, and she wanted him to have this so much her heart ached with it. "I'm so glad for you. I know you can make it!"

"Thanks." He dropped his gaze and shrugged. "I truly wish I could have told Charity. Don't know if she would have cared, but if she hadn't decided to forego charges... well. I think I may owe her for this one."

"Of course she would have cared; that's why she wanted to do it this way... She'd have been so pleased for you, Draco! Charity got her wish in the end, and so will you!" She walked back to give him another quick, firm hug, and then backed off before he could catch her, grinned at him and ran upstairs to change into warmer clothes and her winter cloak.

She came down three minutes later to find him in the kitchen, talking with Parvati who'd just arrived home with two full bags of groceries that he'd taken off her hands. He placed them on the counter and Lavender listened carefully to their voices for some seconds. They sounded rather stilted in their polite chatting, strangers and wary ones, too, but there was good will there, on both sides. Good will for her sake. She had a lot of faith that things would be all right on that score, in time, if this thing between her and Draco became... well, a _big_ thing. And, she reflected happily... whoever gave a bespoke broomstick as a present to someone they expected would be a _small_ thing?

"Ready," she called into the kitchen, and waved to Parvati. "We're off on a broom ride," she said. "Draco got me a gorgeous new stick!"

"He mentioned it," Parvati said, dead-pan. "Firebolt, or?"

Draco gave a small chortle that gave way to a cough, and Lavender remember Parvati's letter and its terse advice. She smirked through a bright blush. "Funny, you are."

"Enjoy your broomstick ride," said Parvati, grinning, and shooed them off. Draco looked fairly relieved to be out of the house; it had to be said. Lavender was really grateful to him for giving it such a sporting effort. She looked forward to returning the favour at that Quidditch game with his best mate and former bride. That thought made her giggle, and he nudged her teasingly in the side.

"Knut for your thoughts. Sickle if they're dirty."

Lavender shook her head, grinning at him. "Pure as the driven snow, as ever."

She carefully let go of the Nimbus beside her and jumped up and down clapping her hands in excitement at how it hovered there with a pretty little hum; waited for him to mount it first and to get on at the back, but Draco shook his head at once. "It's your stick, Lavender. Your show. I'll sit at the back; I'll keep a good hold on you, and you decide how high and how fast. All right?"

She bit her lip and nodded, straddling the — oh! so pretty! — stick and finding herself comfortably, warmly seated on the Cushioning Charm. Draco felt even warmer, getting on behind her, his arms coming firm and strong around her. Lavender felt him follow her movement as she leaned forward and kicked off carefully, and the broom took off, rather wobbly at first, but she was getting the hang of it somewhat as their feet cleared the rooftops of Hogsmeade.

She whooped in excitement. "Where to? Want to take a sweep around the castle?"

"Whatever you want." He leaned in to speak close to her ear, and his voice had a smile in it that was sort of like a question and made her shiver pleasantly despite the warmth of him at her back. "Although if you'd like a closer and safer ride for this first go... I have a flat now, not too far away. I don't have a four poster bed, or champagne, but I cleaned and I bought roses, and there's a quite comfortable mattress on the floor, and I actually did bring all my Mulberry silk sheets—"

Lavender glanced over her shoulder, and when her stomach did a wild swoop, again, it wasn't the height that did it, at all. Those grey eyes of his looked very young and hopeful, yet very wicked, too. "You're one smooth talking Slytherin bastard, you know that?" she said, unable to contain the smile spreading on her lips. She leaned forward on the broom and accelerated with an exuberance and speed that had her squealing and Draco laughing, as he quickly helped right the course.

They flew apace on Lavender's pink-and-blue broom, on a wobbling but ultimately steady path over the housetops, and the falling snow whispered and murmured like a promise all around them, and the cold moon rose round and benevolent at their backs.

-αρχή (beginning)-

_Greek mini-glossary:  
Kaló taksidi - Good journey/bon voyage  
Evcharistó - Thank you_


End file.
